Question

You are an IT company and want to get a travel agency's network design, hardware, software, and security.

Project resources allocation. List all types of resources (e.g. human and non-human) you will use them in the enterprise network project. How are you planning to use those resources cost-effectively?

Answer 1

Resources are people, equipment, place, money, or anything else that you need in order to do all of the activities that you planned for. Every activity in your activity list needs to have resources assigned to it. Before you can assign resources to your project, you need to know their availability.

Resource allocation helps you to choose the best available resources for your projects and manage them throughout the work, so you can avoid under or overutilization of your employees. Sadly, not all project managers use it to their advantage.

• Potential, Developed, and Stock Resources

Natural elements which are already easily available but humans are yet to discover their real power are Potential resources. For example, Solar and Wind energy are two natural resources, which have a high potential for human life. Though we are using it, we can use these even more in the future once we understand their true potential.

1.Solar Energy- Present as abundant till we have sun. Can be used to build electricity for whole industry. (if we build our factory in sub-tropical areas, it will be benifited).

2.Wind Energy- with the help of turbines we can make wind as a useful resource and can generate electricity.(Areas with high or strong winds place will be suitable).

3.Power-Plant Energy - For making a powerplant we need special permission from government and a well-deserted area .And also this pollutes environment.(SO this is the most unsuitable energy resources).

Resource management is prone to several challenges that you need to be aware of to properly allocate resources and manage them throughout the project.

1. Client changes

As a project manager you might have already experienced how changes to the scope, timeline or budget can affect project delivery. With resource allocation it’s actually the same – having an up-to-date resource calendar will help you to smoothly adjust resources once the changes appear.

2. Availability of resources

Starting off a new project, ideally you could use any resources you need that are available at your company. But what if your agency is running multiple projects and you have to negotiate over the same resources with another PMs? Or what if a given team member is out on their sick leave? Availability changes and you have to monitor it all the time to spot threats to your project’s delivery.

3. Project dependencies

Allocating resources you need to include project dependencies, which are a form of a relationship between the tasks or activities in the project. For example in IT projects there are tasks that can only be done after some other ones are completed, so there’s no point to hog resources early on.

4. Project uncertainties

Even if you’ve checked all the boxes when starting off a project, agreed on the timeline, the budget and the scope, there’re always things you can’t predict. Resource management requires you to be able to respond to project uncertainties, e.g. by shifting resources from other projects or re-assigning them.

5. Priorities across the company

If your company runs multiple projects simultaneously, you and your peers may have to share limited resources, very often in a similar timeframe. But even if you manage to negotiate over resources you both need, there may be a change in priorities regarding one of the projects