Resource management maturity
Knowing what resources are available and when within an organization can be complicated and time consuming. There are many moving parts, attitudes, and opinions that can muddy the waters.
Many organizations decide to purchase a resource management software with all the bells and whistles thinking that will resolve all their resource problems. That often leads to more moving parts, deeper details that current processes don’t entail, and leads to fewer people using the system you purchased to solve the problem.
So how do you untangle your resource needs to gain clarity about your resource capacity?
The first realization to come to is that your resource problems won’t be resolved overnight or in a month. Learning to understand and then manage your resources is a skill that takes time and effort to master.
However, some of you may be further along the journey to resource management mastery than you think. Take a look at each stage in the Resource Maturity Model and see if you recognize your organization in one of them.
Four stages of resource management maturity
Where to go from here
Did you see your organization in one of these stages? If you did, great. From here you can start planning the rest of your resource management journey.
If you didn’t, no worries. Even with these definitions it can be tricky to determine exactly where you are.
Have an honest look at and discussion of where you currently are with your resource management processes. Address and be able to answer questions like:
- How do we track capacity?
- Who tracks capacity?
- Are our people resources organized and if so, how?
- Is there one or several people dividing up resources to prioritized work?
- How is that work prioritized?, etc.
Take those answers and identify what stage of resource maturity your organization is currently in. This will give you a place to start as you think about how resource management should work for your organization.