All about Resource Management Software

Resource management is a part of project management. It signifies the process which involves planning, tracing, and at the same time optimizing the use of reserves. It facilitates program work. The resources involve faculty, area, and materials. The process of resource management involves proposing and organizing work. Also, checking and verifying the availability of the resources, among other things. It also involves monitoring and looking over time to modify and adapt to changes.

 

Use of resource management software:

●     Resource management software makes the work easy. Use is to do the planning, scheduling, and rescheduling projects and programs.

●     Resource Management software is also sometimes referred to as resource capacity planning software.

●     This software is a kind of project management tool. It facilitates planning, assigning. Also, tracking as to who is working on what, when did the individual start working, and how long.

●     The resource management software makes the work simple. It is easy to view the availability of resources. Further, to measure the ability of the organization, the availability of skills, and so on. It shows the past and already happened resource usage.

 

A few of the familiar examples of resource management software:

A few common examples seen and used by all are PlanStreet, Resource Guru, and Mavenlink. These offer various features like resource planning, program projecting, and other features.

 

A few advantages of using resource management software:

●     Resource management software makes resource management work straightforward and streamlined.

●     It makes the deployment as productive and effective as possible.

●     It also increases utilization by reducing downtime.

●     It provides a clear view of organizational capability, which helps to avoid overlooking and, at the same time, supports hiring verdicts.

●     It helps to forecast income by forehand delivering reports on the upcoming future projects and programs.

●     Resource management software helps in the policy of resource deployment.

 

How an effective resource management system works with an example:

Only a system that works and provides aid is an effective resource management software. Excel spreadsheet and google sheet are as simple as the resource management software. The software enables and allows an association to use resources as productively and effectively as possible at their disposal.

 

The work is not so easy and requires dedicated software for the purpose. The resource management software enables the organization to process and conduct resource planning in such a way so that the available resources are in usage at their full potential. Also, taking into account and considering the availability of staff and laborers, their skills and talents, their preferences and choices, their area and locations, and time zone and maps. These are in use against programs, projects, and organizational objectives.

 

Project portfolio management is under the support of resource management software. It provides a path to effectively manage and organize resources and programs to use their full potential productivity and benefits.

 

Method to create and develop a resource plan and strategy:

 

By keeping in mind a few points, a resource plan is carefully created:

●     One should identify and recognize the various kinds of resources and programs that can fulfill a project. Committee members, meeting cabins, materials, equipment, and other devices all come under resources.

●      The next thing to look at is calculating and evaluating the quantity and amount of each kind of resource that comes in use and requirement.

●     The work requires estimation, quantification, and identification of the resources. Individuals require to consider the resources and then rate their actions on the projects and programs.

●     The next step is to schedule and plan the utilization and consumption of every resource within the project.

Using a project schedule, one can do the planning and sorting of resources. It will help to know who to book, when to book, and how long to book.

 

Resource forecast meaning and importance:

To plan and schedule resources to deliver a project is resource forecasting. This process, to forecast resources, occurs at the initial phases of the resource management project. It might be as early as the start of the sales process.

 

Resource forecast assists in calculating and figuring out the time and effort the projects and programs need.

●     It helps to determine and plan the project and program timings.

●     It helps to infer and calculate the budget and total cost of the project.

●     It also helps to estimate the project as given by the clients.

 

Method to calculate the project resources:

The past historical project performances prove to be a great help to calculate the degree of effort required. It lets you compare and contrast the fresh current project plans and recognize the current program team velocity.

 

Then the formula applied is:

 

Current velocity divided by project estimate equal to resources required. 

 

In resource management, it is a very crucial step to determine and evaluate the resources required for a project so that an individual can plan and take the right amount of the time required for teamwork.

 

If the resource is too little, the team will not get enough time to complete the work.

If the resource is way too much than the requirement, the team will find ways to waste their time or work faster to fill in the extra time.

 

So, to avoid such circumstances, the calculation of project resources forehand is very important.

 

Examples of best resources management software with their overviews:

 

1. PlanStreet

It is one of the best software tools out there. It helps set up resources in the best way possible and has a wide array of useful tools and libraries, which are certain to make resource management much easier.

 

It has a professional design, yet it is very easy to understand and pick up.

Along with resource management, it provides efficient expense and works tracking features. It truly makes it a complete package.

 

2. monday.com

It is one of the most flexible online platforms that help its squad members express, get a crystal clear view of the outstanding projects, know about the available resources, and projected timelines.

 

It has a simple design and a precise interface for planning and managing.

 

3. 10,000 ft by Smartsheet

It is a high-level resource management software. It helps make confident and optimistic decisions about the planning of projects, team capability, forecast budget, team usage, and hiring needs offline.

 

The team matching is through the unique resource matching feature, which allows its users to project and program requirements.

 

4. Float

Float software makes planning and scheduling work simple with various options and shortcuts for editing and various other features!

 

Now you understand what resource management software does and how it is useful. The only way to get a taste is to use it in your work. Planstreet comes as one of the most recommended. Go ahead and try out the wonders of resource management software.

 

Choosing the best resource management software is a daunting task. So, make sure you check all the parameters and features that you are looking for before going for any of the above-mentioned software tools.

Kanban Boards for Lean Manufacturing

With the fast-paced advancement in technologies, the business world has also been advancing. The manufacturing industries have adapted to a new technique called Lean Manufacturing to overcome some of the challenges, which further leads us to the new system called Kanban Boards.

What is Lean Manufacturing?

Companies have been following the same tradition for quite a long time. Their management practices and skills have not changed since then. It includes slow delivery, poor quality of work, and a lot of generated waste.

During manufacturing operations, several activities take place. Some of these activities are impractical, ineffective, and useless. Such activities are considered as waste by the manufacturers.
The world is transforming rapidly, and so is the business world, which is constantly evolving. With this advancement, companies are thriving to achieve the best results with their smart work. The companies today opt for such a procedure that can increase their productivity in less time, which leads them to opt for Lean manufacturing.

Lean manufacturing helps an organization in achieving its goals efficiently and with the least hassle. This approach increases the value of products, services, and reduces waste production. Lean management includes various tools and methods to eliminate factors that are responsible for wasting time, efforts, and money. It helps you to deliver the best and higher quality products at much lower costs.

Principles of Lean Manufacturing

The procedure of Lean manufacturing works on certain principles. Every principle is interdependent, and hence all carry their specific importance in the complete management.

The five main principles important for Lean manufacturing are:

1. Discover the Value

The most important concern of every single business is and must be the customer’s need. What is it that your customers need and expect from your services or products are something that must be taken care of without fail.

The services that you offer add to its value. The more reliable your product and services are, the more will be the value. Anything that is not satisfactory or up to mark is as waste. Therefore, identifying your customer’s needs is the most valuable step in Lean manufacturing.

2. Attain Value

Once you have discovered the value, the next step includes attaining that value. The process requires you to plan and evaluate every step needed for delivering the value to your customer. This step helps you understand every aspect of the procedure before starting it. Moreover, it can help you predict as to which steps in the process will generate waste.

3. Work Flow

For attaining a specific value, a constant workflow is essential. When various teams work on the same project, managing their responsibilities and tasks becomes difficult, which further affects the value of the product and services. To face all the challenges and obstacles, one needs constant workflow. If you manage the workflow correctly, it becomes quite easy to detect and eliminate waste processes and enhances the value of a product.

4. Pull System

Now that we have understood the importance of workflow in the development of a product or service, we can say that the only key to achieve a successful service in less time and effort is a stable workflow. So, the next thing to consider here is how you can achieve a stable workflow?
Companies establish a constant workflow by creating a pull system. Using this pull system, organizations include more work items in the flow whenever it is necessary. The items get added to the workflow as per the demand, which helps the organization in increasing the value.

5. Constant Improvement

Lean manufacturing is all about developing products and services with the least generated wastes, discovering the value, and attaining it. You can achieve these factors by following the principles mentioned above, but the most important principle in Lean manufacturing is constant improvement.
Every business wants to grow and succeed, which is possible only if they improve constantly. Adapting to new processes and techniques leads a company to continuous improvement. Some of the steps they follow to attain improvements are giving team members the freedom to share their ideas and thoughts and take action.

These were the five basic principles followed in Lean manufacturing. Companies follow these principles and reduce the generation of wastes while developing products and services.
To make the process of Lean manufacturing easier, most of the companies use a software development process named as Kanban. Though Lean manufacturing has reduced several complexities faced while manufacturing, but the introduction of the Kanban System has taken the company’s ease to the next level.

What is Kanban?

The term Kanban has taken over the entire business world due to its easy functioning. Kanban is a method, somewhat related to Lean manufacturing, that controls the production and management of various products and services in an organization. The Kanban Boards keep track of complete information about manufacturing – What is produced? When is it produced? And in what quantity?

This system lets you organize all the steps that you would take during the manufacturing process. The Kanban Boards ensure that the organization is developing only the products required by the customers and nothing more. It also helps in ensuring that all the resources necessary for developing a product are available within the stock.

Its invention took place in 1947, and the most crucial task of the Kanban System is to gather all details of a process, prioritizing tasks, and storing the progress in the Kanban Boards. This system helps in handling the flow of production.

Kanban System and Lean Production

Lean manufacturing has made a permanent spot for itself in the business world. Organizations are relying on this manufacturing methodology to organize the production processes with much ease. We have already seen that Lean manufacturing uses a pull system to achieve constant workflow. Using Kanban can also make this possible.

The pull system controls the stock level, balances the workload, and enhances the management criteria.

The pull system is responsible for making a chain that connects material supply to the first step. The functioning of Kanban Boards includes the addition and elimination of cards that represents a stock level. If the cards are removed one by one from the system, this means all stocked materials have been consumed, and no more stocks are available to start a new production process. This process, therefore, helps the organization to be prepared for upcoming obstacles and also to restock the resources before it gets completely emptied.

Limitations of Kanban Boards

Kanban Boards have become the first choice of multiple companies; it is not suitable for every condition. There are some limitations of Kanban that you should consider before you opt for this system.

Customer demand: Kanban system works best if there is a regular demand from customers. Otherwise, it becomes difficult for the Kanban Boards to record the stock levels.

Workflow: In case the workflow is constant, Kanban Boards work efficiently. Once irregularities take place, the Kanban Board creates many issues. The arrangement of the workflow is important for an organized process.

Suppliers: Suppliers play a vital role in the manufacturing process. They determine the cost, quality, and the number of items required for particular product development. Hence these suppliers also determine the usage and functioning of Kanban Boards by supporting it.

Product Variations: Every manufacturing company makes various products as per the customers’ demand. If these products are higher in number, managing their resources becomes easy for Kanban Boards, but if demand for a specific product is low, the stock of resources gets held, which decreases the value.

Along with Lean Manufacturing, Kanban System is considered a valuable tool to enhance the business. Since every tool needs an ideal environment to function, the Kanban Board is no exception. It has certain required scenarios for enhanced functioning.

Kanban takes time to settle. You can’t install the system and expect it to function overnight. It needs training and explanation for proper working. One can’t handle all functions – from Kanban Boards to Kanban Bins – all alone.

Everything, including Kanban Boards, need complete preparation and planning to prevent any mishandling and errors while functioning. Therefore, it is crucial to use the Kanban system along with all the essential tools that include Lean manufacturing.

What Is Project Scheduling in Project Management?

Image: smarttask.io

Each project comprises of many tasks that you must complete within the due time for a successful project. Since it is not just one person or one device that is working in a project, it is essential to have proper project scheduling.

Project scheduling is a mechanism that enables the building of a communication system amongst the various organizational resources regarding the completion of different tasks within a stipulated duration. In simple words, a project schedule is a document that contains all the information regarding the timely completion of a project.

Project scheduling makes even the most difficult tasks seem pretty easy because you have everything planned and sorted. Since each project has various human as well as non-human resources associated with it, which keep changing time and again, project scheduling software helps tackle the problem by constantly updating interdependent tasks. Gone are the days when people used printed calendars on shared walls or even shared spreadsheets via email for scheduling various tasks.

We now have the luxury of using various project scheduling software, which enables excellent communication amongst all the team members. Moreover, it even creates automated email alerts about the due dates and shares details about changes in the availability of any member for the ease of other teammates. It is like a one-stop solution to various problems associated with any project.

HOW TO SCHEDULE A PROJECT?

Now that you are aware of the basics of project scheduling, it is crucial to know how to get it done. The first thing in scheduling a project is to sit back, relax, and find accurate answers to the following questions.

1. What are the tasks?
2. When should the tasks be completed?
3. Who can do the task?

Once you are sure of these questions, you can get your project scheduled by following these steps.

Define Activities
You need to know the required activities and tasks in your project. You may have to consider eliminating unnecessary tasks that appear to be unproductive. It may seem tough, but here is where you can use a Work Breakdown Structure and a deliverables diagram to ease things for yourself. It helps in organizing tasks by mapping them in a proper sensible order.

Do Estimates
Nobody would throw a party without calculating the budget or considering all the supplies required. Similarly, in any project, it is essential to have a rough idea about how much time and effort one has to put in. It helps in having an organized schedule, thus keeping things simple. Once you do this, you shall save a lot of your precious time and energy.

Determine Dependencies
Well, a project has multiple tasks as its components. If one task does not get completed on time, all the other tasks linked to it shall be affected. It is known as task dependency. Therefore, it is advisable to put a bit of slack in one’s schedule, keeping in mind all the related tasks.

Assign Resources
Last but not least, it is crucial to know which resources you would require in the project. Moreover, it would help if you gave adequate consideration to all the human resources, their time, and availability to have all the tasks completed within the due date.

How to stick to your schedule after project initiation?

In school, many of us would make a study plan with a timetable before the exams to have a proper schedule. But how many of us would abide by our schedule? Not many, for sure. Well, that is precisely the case with most projects, it is easy to have a plan and a schedule. However, following that schedule completely often seems to be a bit challenging. Now, to overcome this obstacle, we need to consider the three tiers of scheduling –

• The tasks
• The people
• The project

Scheduling Tasks
Scheduling tasks comprises handling the various responsibilities associated with each task. An interactive Gantt chart is helpful. It helps in having a complete visual representation of all the details of each task. You can add new tasks, modify already existing tasks, and easily shift content from one slot to the other.

Apart from this, various automating processes are also extremely beneficial. Automatic email notifications are such a blessing. You instantly get notified when your teammate has completed a task, and you get reminders about your due dates and much more. What more do you need?

Scheduling People
Any project is nothing without the people who will work on it. You may have it all scheduled and planned in your head, have all the tasks sorted, but if you lack people, all that scheduling shall be useless. Hence, it is an absolute necessity to have your human resources scheduled appropriately. Every member may skip work some or the other day, maybe a sick leave or a holiday trip or some other reason. In such situations, if you do not schedule the task appropriately amongst the team members, you will not be able to produce optimum results.

The chances are that your project wouldn’t be completed in time. But do not worry, you can tackle this major issue by integrating your calendar into a project management software. By doing so, all the team members shall be aware of each other’s availability, and you can schedule tasks accordingly. Even here, the Gantt chart comes to your rescue. You just need to integrate the task scheduling view on the chart with resource and workload scheduling features. The use of color-coding helps get a quick idea about the proper implementation of the schedule.

Scheduling Projects
Most of the time, our jobs are not simple and sorted. It’s not always a smooth ride. We usually have to struggle between various tasks and activities. Likewise, in any organization at any given point of time, you do not just work on a single project. By now, you have figured out how to have your task and resources scheduled for one project, which is great. But how to deal with multiple projects? Here the project dashboard is your savior.

The dashboard constantly collects all the data regarding every step that is being performed by anyone in any project. It helps in understanding how far you have come with your project. You can easily get information about any lags or delays in any task and thus tackle these issues immediately. Through the use of various graphs and charts displayed on the dashboard, you can get a good insight into the progress of the project.

Therefore, project scheduling is a critical component of project management, which, when appropriately implemented, shall lead to incredible results. You need to have a good schedule for all your resources with thorough communication amongst all the team members.

In today’s highly competitive and flexible global market, scheduling a project has become very important.

Project scheduling involves two practices: 
The first one is iterative scheduling, where the requirements get recorded first and then prioritized before product development. Preferably some deliverables are completed during the work rather than waiting till the end. It is known as iterative because the most significant advantage it offers is it accepts any modification during the development of the product.

The other one is scheduled for the request. In this mode, you cannot request the development of the product; rather, the request is reported in the backlog and executed if the resource is available.

The latest trend in the project schedule is project management software. Unlike traditional methods of scheduling projects on calendars via mail, people today prefer project planning software. The project management software has various features, and the project schedule is one of them. Through this software, the managers and team members communicate and schedule the project effectively.

Project Management Institute, companies lose $109 million for every $1 billion spent on projects and programs.

Let us understand why project scheduling is important?

The project once gets started, may get off the track if it is not scheduled correctly. It could cause complications and can increase the budget.

Project size matters a lot while scheduling a project. The chances of faults and errors increase with the increase in the size of the project. Hence large projects tend to fail and get delayed often as compared to smaller projects.

Scheduling project software has made the process easy and smooth. The tasks are interdependent, which means modifications in one task can make all other dependent tasks to modify.

Let us discuss some of the most popular project management software. The list includes:

1. PlanStreet

PlanStreet offers some great features, let's take a look:

An organization cannot afford to miss deadlines or overspend on a project. With PlanStreet, you can estimate your budgets well in advance, which will help you avoid overspending. You can also track your project progress. It will help you in delivering the project on time.

With centralized management, project managers have better control over tasks. Documents are shared on a single platform, which makes communication between team members faster and more efficient. Users can easily access shared files. After getting clarity on the resources available, the project managers can allocate tasks for the right people. With PlanStreet, managers can make optimum use of the talents available to them in their teams.

For small and medium enterprises, budget constraints are strict. Keeping all this in mind, PlanStreet offers plans at affordable prices. It starts at a minimal price of $15 per month per user.

2. Wrike

Most of Wrike’s useful features are built-in, so you do not have to spend much time learning how to use the tool. It offers some usual management tools like report generation, Gantt Charts, and even the interactive dashboards are available. It is the best match for small and medium enterprises that want to set up a management tool quickly.

The software even offers a built-in tool for time tracking, which can be used by an individual on the team or to track the progress of the project itself.

3. Basecamp

Basecamp is one of the oldest professional project management software. It has been in the market for a very long time and has garnered a huge number of loyal customers.

Basecamp comprises features of different paid apps, which it then presents on one platform, such as real-time chat, private messaging option, file storage, calendar, and scheduling.

The user interface is neat. The search tool works efficiently. The user can quickly search for a file, attachment, or message they are looking for. The reporting suite is quite comprehensive, too, and allows width and depth while generating reports.