Portfolio resource management guide

Portfolio resource management

Today, we’re diving into the exciting realm of portfolio resource management – a technique that can supercharge your organization’s project success.

Picture this: you’ve got a whole array of projects lined up in your portfolio and resources are the lifeblood that fuels them all. That’s where portfolio resource management comes into play – a savvy approach that’s all about identifying, allocating and leveraging resources effectively to hit your strategic goals.

Think of it as the ultimate juggling act. It involves balancing people across projects, ensuring each project gets its fair share of resources while making sure your resources are optimally utilized.

Pmi.org, defines portfolio resource management as “the processes that allow an organization to effectively assign the appropriate resources (number and skills) to successfully execute the projects in the portfolio”. We come up with a simpler definition, Portfolio Resource Management is that secret sauce that ensures every project gets what it needs to thrive

Table of contents

Portfolio resource management is used to effectively assign resources to the most appropriate projects in the organizations portfolio.

What is portfolio resource management?

Portfolio resource management is a strategic process that involves effectively managing and optimizing an organization’s resources across its portfolio of projects. It revolves around identifying, allocating, and utilizing resources in a way that aligns with the organization’s strategic objectives and maximizes overall performance.

As part of the overall project portfolio management (PPM) process, portfolio resource management is a critical component that ensures resources are allocated appropriately to your projects. It aims to strike a balance between the available resources and the demands of the projects to ensure optimal utilization and successful project outcomes.

Portfolio resource management process

Portfolio resource management involves steps to effectively manage and optimize an organization’s resources across its portfolio of projects. 

Project prioritization

Start by prioritizing your projects. The right prioritization method to use depends on the organization’s strategic intent and what it seeks to accomplish during the coming years. Ideally, some combination of metrics including financial return, risk and implementation difficulty should be used. In Kelloo scorecards are one option that can be used to help you set priorities.

project scorecard for project prioritization

Estimate resource requirements

The next step in the process involves forecasting the resource requirements for current and upcoming projects. It means assessing the resource levels and skill sets needed to execute each project successfully. For each project allocate the types of resources needed and when.

Capacity planning

Capacity planning is used to work out if you have enough resources, where the shortfalls are and if you have the right level of skills onboard.

Capacity planning compares the resources you have versus the resource needs of your projects and highlights where you have gaps. Learn more about the capacity planning process and the steps involved.

Capacity Planning

Optimize resources and project timings

The chances are you will have more projects than you have resources for. So something has to give. The next step is to perform what if planning to find the best mix of projects, resources and project timings. What if scenario analysis lets you see the impact of adjusting priorities, shifting when projects are happening and flexing resource levels to find the optimal solution for your projects.

Kelloo's resource management tools

Resource planning, forecasting and reporting in one place. We help you get the most from your projects and people.

Resource planning

The next step is resource planning. This is where each project gets allocated the resources it needs without overloading your people.

Resource planning your projects involves taking each project, one by one and assigning the necessary resources. The key is finding that perfect balance – ensuring your resources are distributed efficiently, so they can deliver their best performance without burning out.

resource overallocation

Portfolio resource management software

Traditional PPM (project portfolio management tools) have a strong focus on project execution and project selection but a weak capability around resource management.

Whereas traditional resource management tools focus on managing utilization and time reporting.

Using a tool like Kelloo allows you to align priorities, resources and allocations across a multi project portfolio. It enables this by providing portfolio prioritization, portfolio management, resource allocation and resource planning in a unified solution.

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What if scenario analysis

What if scenario analysis in project management

The new what if planning features in Kelloo give you a crystal ball at your fingertips so you can see the future. What if planning shows what will happen if you change project timings, delay projects, hire or fire resources or cancel or commit to new projects.