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Project resourcing, like project benefit management, is one of the most important aspects so as to make a project successful.

If you stop to think, the key component to making a project happen is the people. In reality it is usual for almost all of the project costs to relate to resource costs.

So how can a PMO help in respect of resourcing?

Project Resource Planning

The PMO should give clear guidance about what level of planning is expected as a minimum in respect of resources. As a part of the business case process, a project manager will often develop a project plan. So as to work out costs, a project manager must consider what type of resources and when in order to deliver the items noted on the project plan.

The PMO should ideally provide a straightforward template that permits the project manager to capture details of the project resources needed on a month by month basis. The resources can be captured under generic terms such as project manager, business analyst, tester, developer, for example.

The PMO should also provide resource resource rates as an element of the planning and financial guidance. This can make allowances for the project manager to build up cost plans and ensure normalisation across all projects.

PMO Review

The PMO should review the resource plan and make sure that it makes sense in respect of the suggested project plan and cost plan. Look out for projects that have constructed a project plan based totally on adding a large amount of resources following the sign-off of the business case. In the vast majority of cases, this isunachievable and means the plan isn't convincing.

On a monthly basis, the PMO should ask the project to provide a progress update against resource plan i.e. Resources employed, pending and vacant. This may then permit the PMO to monitor how well the project is doing. If a project is running behind their resource plan, further questions can be asked on what’s being impacted (if a project said it needed 10 resources by February but only has 5 then the project status should show slippage against schedule).

Having a good view on the development of hiring against resource plan will allow the PMO to provide support. A good PMO will have built links with HR (ideally a dedicated contact point) who can then work with each project to try to achieve the required resource plan.

It will also allow for an organisation to plan best use of cash by employing the resource plans as inputs to cash flow forecasts.

Employ these straightforward ideas and it will improve the chance of successful delivery and highlight your PMO as being really organized - “excellent for the career”.

Simon Wilkinson owns of practical PMO providing real word advice and guidance for pmo setup and pmo templates to fast track the mobilisation of a PMO.