The Importance of Resource Planning and Acquisition Policies

Organizational policies are the policies of the performing organization regarding staffing and the rental or purchase of supplies and equipment. These policies must be considered during resource planning to ensure that your project will run as smoothly as possible.

Organizational policies are the result of tried and true business practices. Company policies can encompass a wide range of issues from employee benefits to resource acquisition.

Staffing issues are covered by your company's human resource policies. A collective bargaining agreement is a factor that might affect your company's policies. These agreements place restrictions upon employers concerning hours of work, wages, and job security. They can determine overtime, vacation pay, and safety standards. Consider the example of Kurt, a project manager for an appliance manufacturer.

Another example of staffing policies are company hiring policies. These policies may include equal opportunity programs, internal hiring practices, and educational requirements.

Not abiding by these policies can lead to employee dissatisfaction, high employee turnover, and even lawsuits. To avoid these potentially debilitating problems, you will want to commit your organization's staffing policies to memory.

The other policy areas of interest to resource planners are organization's equipment and materials policies. These policies specify how you are to acquire resources from suppliers.

For example, your company may have policies:

• requiring that all suppliers be approved by the Quality Assurance department
• listing preferred suppliers from which you must choose
• regarding each step of the acquisition process.

Other policies may exist to help you decide whether to rent or purchase the necessary materials and equipment. If a project requires equipment or materials for a short period of time, a company may determine it is cheaper to rent rather than purchase the equipment or materials.
Each step of acquiring resources may have an accompanying policy. Make sure you know what your company has determined regarding these resource decisions before you begin. Failure to abide by resource acquisition policies can destroy hard-won relationships with favored long-term suppliers and may result in significant increases in supply costs which could result in project budget overages.

Organizational policies act as a guide to ensure a quality project. They help your project run more smoothly because everyone knows what is expected in terms of resource planning and acquisition. In addition, these policies serve to protect against the negative effects of not abiding by policy, which can include employee lawsuits, damaged relationships with long-term suppliers, and increased project costs.

Planning Resources Using a Resource Pool Description

Before you begin working on a project, you need know if you have the resources to support it. This is where a resource pool description comes in. A resource pool description is a report that gives details about the people, materials, and equipment necessary to complete the project work.

People
To keep track of the human component of your project, you should compile a list of potential human resources. This list should include:

• the person's name
• whether she is an internal or external resource
• her resource type
• her skills
• the company or division she works for
• her supervisor
• her pay rate
• the anticipated project start and end dates
• her availability
• any vacation she may be eligible or already scheduled to take
• additional comments

Your human resource requirements may change as the project progresses and so may not have all the spreadsheet information at project inception, but you should strive to fill in as much information as possible before you begin assigning resources.

Equipment and materials
The information you need for your equipment and materials spreadsheet varies only slightly from your human resource spreadsheet. You would need to know:

• the resource name
• whether the resource is internal or external
• the supplier (source of the resource)
• the rate or cost per unit
• the resource location
• the resource availability
• a contact name
• the resource type
• specifications
• comments

Your resource pool description is not static. The different phases of a project may require different resources. That's why your list of possible resources may change as your project progresses.
You may need a large number of people working on your project to start with. As the project progresses, you may need fewer people, but with highly specialized skills. Or the opposite could happen. This means that you will constantly have to adjust your resource pool description.

Similarly, your project could require completely different equipment or materials, depending on which phase of the project you are working on. Your resource pool description should reflect this.

In addition to keeping track of what resources are "available," you should also keep track of the resources once you use them. This information is needed for accounting purposes and can also be used to estimate future resource requirements for future projects.

Your project plan outlines the type of work your project requires. Your resource pool description allows you to match the right resource to a specific task. As such, a resource pool description is an invaluable tool for the project you are planning now and for those you will plan in the future.