Resource Contingency Planning
Strategy #3
Resource Contingency Planning: Having multiple plans to accommodate resource availability ensures that the project can stay on track even when unexpected changes occur.
This serves as a valuable reminder to ensure that key personnel are available or that there is a plan to develop necessary skills within the team to create a deeper resource bench. Many projects take months and even years to complete - identifying the key people and roles needed to execute on your project helps avoid potential delays.
What is the impact of not having a key resource available when needed on the overall project timeline? It can be immense. When you run a very lean organization with little redundancy, or have many people in specific positions that have little give in terms of staffing, the impact on their absence during key activities of the project can throw off the launch date.
What does it mean to pay attention to the resource availability for planning purposes? Especially lengthy projects can experience both planned and unplanned absences of key resources - planned leaves of absence, vacation time, planned training time, etc. Additionally, teams that need addtional training to effectively transition to new processes or technology may need backup to ensure that they can take time away from their regular duties to attend classes.
Although there’s no way to “lock the doors” and keep everyone on site to ensure that all your resources are available, there’s a great deal you can do to develop mitigation strategies and contingency plans.
When planning the key resources, when you’ll need them and for how much time, make sure you note anyone who does not have a ‘backup’ or easily identifiable substitute
Instead of just capturing planned vacation and other leaves, identify the potential for impact on project launch for any of these absences and find a way to hire, reassign or work around the person for this period of time
Very unpopular, but sometimes unavoidable, is to limit the ability of teams to take vacation time using your standard process - if this will create too big a gap in the needed resources to launch on time, “blackouts” may be necessary
Accelerate timing of training development to capture information or expertise of key resources (if all pans out with testing) to make sure that any unplanned absence won’t throw you off course
Success in launching on time is fundamentally dependent on having the right people available to execute the tasks necessary to arrive as planned. Therefore, making sure that you have a back up plan for all critical resources will mitigate potential delays.
