Getting & Estimating Resources

Now that you have a better overview of the activities and schedule of your project, you have to determine the resources that you will need to execute the activities. You will need resources such as people, material and other supplies. For example, in a website design project you would typically need graphical designers and programmers, access to rooms to hold your meetings, software, computers, and so on.

People

Let’s begin with the most important resource – people. You will need to determine the skills required for accomplishing the activities of your project. After this phase, you need to match people to those skills. A good way to do this is to create a skills sheet that matches skills to activities. Also keep columns for the name of people, their start dates, their cost and the training they need to accomplish their tasks – this information can sometimes be obtained at the same time. Here is an example of a sheet that you can use to accomplish this:

WBS	Activity	Skills Needed	Name of Person	Skills Level	Deliverable	Effort Days	Start Date	End Date	Cost
2.1	Write marketing content	Marketing	JJC	Expert	Marketing content for website	10	May 07	May 20	9,500
2.2	Write HR content	HR	AFH	Intermediate	HR content for website	8	May 10	May 30	7,600
2.3	Edit all content	Document editing	KDM	Expert	Edited content for website	5	Apr 04	Apr 20	4,000

The above table goes beyond simply matching activities and skills – it also contains columns for the names of the people who will execute an activity, their skills level, the deliverable that they are expected to produce, the date on which they can start and finish, and their cost. Fill in these columns as soon as you can. Often the managers of the people that you need will be able to commit the availability of these people for your project. However, it is recommended that you always cross-check this information with your project team members, and pay particular attention to the following:

• Check up the availability of your project team members by taking into account their vacations, sick days and the other projects that they are already working on.
• Ask the functional managers of your project team members to assess the skill set of their people, and the effort days that will be required by them to accomplish the activities assigned to them (always cross-check the effort days with the person who will executing an activity).
• The functional managers should be able to tell you how much their people cost. The more detail you go into when estimating the costs, the more accurate your cost estimates will be. So be detailed when it comes to costs as this frequently becomes an issue later on in the project.

Nonperson Resources

You may also need to factor in the availability of nonperson resources such as supplies, equipment and facilities. To do this, create a nonperson availability sheet similar to the example below:

WBS	Activity	Resource Needed	Time in Hours	Date(s) Needed
4.1	Design brochure	- Computer - Color Printer	80	04 to 29 Apr
4.2	Brochure review meeting	- Meeting room with computer connected to projector	3	04 May
4.3	Make copies of draft brochure	- Color Photocopier	2	05 May

Now that you have an idea of your resource requirements and their availability, go back to your Gantt chart. You might need to re-adjust it in order to take into account your team members’ or other nonperson resources’ availability.