That pipeline is heating up. A couple of hot leads have come through that could impact the top and bottom lines quite nicely. Maybe even long term relationships to stabilize the firm moving forward…Yes, these are the type of deals that sales have been tracking and now they have come to fruition.
What are we waiting for? Get the team together-Let’s jump on this!
Why the look of confusion? What’s that you say?
Who? When? How?
Ok… let’s stop and think this through.
So many things go into properly staffing a project. Resource Forecasting is at the top of the list. Who needs to be doing what? Do we understand our resource inventory? Are we utilizing our resources’ skillset properly? Do we have resources rolling off other projects? Are resources over utilized? What do we do if the project exceeds the forecasted plan? How do we bring in additional resources if and when they are needed?
Are you even aware of what your team is working on? Projects are going on in parallel, who is assigned where? What is the health of those ongoing projects? Is the client satisfied with the teams who have been assigned to their account?
How do you expand profit margins, avoid scope creep, maintain client relationships and grow the business at a maintainable rate?
These types of issues exist in most companies, no matter the size. Only about 5% of businesses say they are properly staffed. That is a staggering number considering the amount of time that goes into planning for success.
Surprisingly, 50% of companies actually list low utilization as their #1 risk. Are you using your resources to the best of their ability? How are you interpreting non billable utilization? Are your resources spending too much time with data entry, finding required information across multiple tools or in meetings that are outside of their primary project tasks?
Over utilized, Under-utilized. Questions, Questions, Questions.
Are there answers to these problems? Perhaps not. However, there are things that can implemented on a enterprise level that can assist in properly staffing projects and meeting optimized productivity. Once you understand common pitfalls that can derail projects, you can start to build a plan to avoid those in the future. After all, those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.
Let’s start with Visibility – This is crucial to understanding the health of your business. It’s imperative that management, both on the project and at the C level have proper line of site into ongoing projects. The tools being used speak volumes about the ability to provide info to all parties. If your information is scattered across platforms, with resources using multiple tools to enter and present info, you are never going to have viable visibility into projects. When I say viable, I mean that if there was no one presenting the information, anyone accessing the data could still interpret the health of the project. Why waste time presenting info, when you spent so much time entering it? If you are utilizing the same tools across your business, everyone should be able to enter and access info from them. Align people with process.
Secondly, strategic goals come into play. Are the employees of a firm aligned with the objectives of management? Do they understand the goals of the firm and the importance of their work? Are they stuck between their project work and other unplanned activities and not clear how to prioritize? The types of critical discussions should be planned and had prior to project kick-off. The Project Manager should have an idea of how the project impacts bottom line and be able to covey the importance to the project team. This of course, requires that visibility from upper management and the alignment of goals. All members of the project should have a feel for the scope and importance of that project to the business.
It’s also crucial to track project metrics. Project leaders have to be able to fall back on past projects and guide their project teams appropriately. This information is funneled through the project manager and disseminated to the team. The best way to ensure success on a project is to be able to identify past failures easily and mitigate them early. This goes back to repeating history. Use the information you’ve obtained on past projects to help guide your current ones.
Hopefully your projects are moving along nicely. If they aren’t, you may need to adjust how you plan and operate moving forward.