The success of every project depends on the efforts of its team members. Therefore, companies must build an efficient project team. To do so, they should consider the competency/proficiency levels, skills, cost rates, locations, job type, work arrangements, etc., and build a blended workforce.

For instance, maintaining a good ratio of senior and junior teammates or the right mix of the permanent and contingent workforce in each project is a part of creating the resource mix.

Allegis Group’s survey reveals that 62% of organizations meet skill shortages by hiring a blended workforce.

In addition, a blended workforce also helps foster innovation, enhance ROI, boost agility, and stay aligned with the latest trends.

This article elaborates on the best strategies to create the right resource mix and how SAVIOM’s resource management software can help build one.

But before that, let’s first understand.

1. Why is building the right blend of resources significant for projects?

The right blend of resources for each project provides numerous advantages for a firm. To begin with, an appropriate mix of contingent and permanent resources as per the skill demands helps prevent unwanted overhead costs and maximize return on investment.

Further, creating a suitable combination of specialist and generalist resources helps ensure that the critical resources are evenly distributed among all the ongoing projects. Thus, it helps prevent any project from derailing due to unavailability.

Moreover, it also helps reduce the workload of critically-skilled employees and enables non-critical resources to gain more hands-on experience and diversify their skillset. Additionally, deploying cost-effective team members from low-cost locations in a global project helps reduce the overall resourcing costs and enhance profitability.

Now that the importance of building the right resource mix is clear let’s understand the best tips to create it.

2. Efficient Strategies to create the right mix of resources for projects

As already discussed, an optimum combination of resources for projects is highly beneficial for organizations.

Here are the ways you can follow to create one.

2.1 Assess the nature of project requirements

Managers often fail to assess the nature of project demands accurately. As a result, they often face difficulty arranging the right team for the project and face issues like suboptimal deliverable quality, cost overruns, etc. Therefore, they should conduct an in-depth analysis of skill requirements beforehand. It, in turn, will help them understand whether the demands are one-off or recurring and request the resources accordingly.

2.2 Hire a permanent or contingent workforce based on demands

Once the skill demands are analyzed, resource managers can coordinate with the recruitment team to initiate the hiring process. Ideally, firms should hire a permanent workforce for the requirements that are likely to reoccur in multiple projects and align with the latest trends. On the other hand, for one-time demands, the organization should hire contingent employees, which can be released once the project is over, reducing overhead costs.

2.3. Maintain an optimal balance between specialists and generalist resources

Every project requires both niche and generic skills. Niche-skilled or specialist resources are often expensive and scarce, while generalists are more in number with lower cost rates. However, having more specialists in a single project can cause budget overruns and hamper the other projects that need them. Contrarily, deploying more generalists can affect critical activities involved, impacting the overall project quality. So, managers must maintain a fine balance between specialists and generalists to control the budget and ensure quality.

2.4. Deploy both seniors and juniors to form the right pay band mix 

Managers sometimes deploy more seniors on a single project, especially a complex one, to enhance quality and client satisfaction. However, it often leads to cost escalations and reduced profit margins. At other times, deploying excess juniors to save on resourcing costs can increase incompetence and deteriorate the project quality. Hence, managers should deploy a few seniors to handle critical tasks and juniors for non-critical ones. They should also consider replacing seniors with similar-skilled juniors wherever possible to create the right band mix across all projects.

2.5. Hire resources from low-cost locations to reduce costs

Managers should consider leveraging various hybrid project delivery models when businesses become global. For example, they can implement an onsite/offshore model where the project is headed in one location while the team is based in another low-cost location. In some cases, managers can use the nearshore delivery models where the project is handled in one site, and the team is based in another location but often within the same continent. These models help onboard employees at lower cost rates and enhance overall profitability.

Given the various practices to formulate the right blend of resources, let’s understand how a resource management solution can help.

3. How can resource management software help?

Firms earlier relied on mostly Excel spreadsheets and legacy tools to record resource-related attributes and manage them. However, the emergence of several modern tools and technologies powered by business intelligence has simplified and expedited the entire process.

An advanced resource management software like SAVIOM can help create the right combination of resources for projects.

  • The enterprise-wide visibility into resources’ profiles helps select the best-fit individuals for each project and form the right resource mix. In addition, advanced filters, including cost rate, skills, location, etc., expedite the search for the right resource. For instance, filters like cost rate and location facilitate the selection of team members from locations where resources have lower cost rates, thereby controlling project costs.
  • The capacity-vs-demand report helps identify the existing skill gaps. Further, the project vacancy report facilitates the evaluation of the nature of the skills required and helps determine whether they are one-time or recurring. Based on the combined insights from these reports, managers can proactively form the right mix of the permanent and contingent workforce for each project and bridge capacity gaps.
  • The availability report helps evaluate the current and future schedules of niche-skilled resources’ schedules and assess their availability in the future. Accordingly, managers can distribute these critically skilled resources uniformly across several projects.
  • The simulation and modeling feature helps form different possible combinations of resources for multiple projects. Accordingly, the resource manager can compare and determine the most viable outcome and implement it in the actual resource plan.

All these functionalities cumulatively contribute to building the “perfect” combination of resources and enhancing profitability.

4. Conclusion

“Get the right people. Then no matter what else you might do wrong after that, the people will save you. That’s what management is all about.” ~ Tom DeMacro, an American author and software engineer. 

The same holds true when it comes to organizing a project team where creating a well-blended workforce is crucial. Following the right practices and implementing robust resource management software can achieve the right resource mix and steer a project to success.

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