Resource vs Capacity Planning - Key Differences And How They Work Together

Having effective project management strategies in place is a crucial step in running a successful business. This should be used to delegate tasks among your team according to their abilities, improve your processes, and ensure you have the resources available for the project. Although there are plenty of different options of how to do this, some will work better than others. What works for your business may be a combination, such as using resource and capacity planning.

Both your team’s resources and its capacity to work on multiple tasks can dictate how your projects are going to pan out. These may sound like similar challenges, however, they do have some key differences that require individual approaches. That’s not to say that resource planning and capacity planning can’t be integrated, rather that it’s important to be aware of the distinctions when including them in your project management processes.

What Is Resource Planning?

Without the right resources available to you, your project isn’t going to get very far. Whether this is discovering too late that you don’t have the stock to fulfill an order, the right software to complete a process, or having a limited budget, not knowing what resources are at your disposal often causes issues later in the project. Resource planning aims to prevent this by anticipating challenges with the availability of tools, software, and people.

Resource planning tends to focus on the needs of one team or project, and on the resource management needed to complete it. This identifies what resources will be needed at which stages in the project and aligns this with their availability or distribution in your business. If resources are not available, this gives managers or leaders a chance to source and pay for the necessary resources. Project managers may use resource planning for the following reasons:

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1. Improves the Utilization Rate

If your business has large quantities of resources not being used, this can be a waste of space and money. This is tracked using utilization rate metrics, calculating how many hours a resource has been used for out of the potential hours it could’ve been used for. A resource that is constantly in use will have a higher rate, signifying its value. Using these metrics can help prioritize your resources and choose what to invest in.

2. Allocates Resources

When your business has multiple ongoing projects, it’s important to know who is using what resources and when. Planning this ensures that the resources needed are available, whether it’s Dialpad web conferencing services, specific equipment, or skilled team members. Likewise, it prompts team leaders to buy additional resources or reschedule their tasks when resources are in use elsewhere.

3. Reduces Delays

Becoming dependent on certain resources can run the risk of creating delays should these resources become unavailable. This could be through breakage or an issue, meaning the projects relying on it become delayed. Resource planning anticipates where resources are depended on, encouraging teams to create backup solutions or ensure copies of the resource can be used in an emergency.

What Is Capacity Planning?

Similar to resource planning, capacity planning looks at the ability of your teams to complete project tasks. There is a limit to how much work one person can do and not accounting for this can lead to bottlenecks on projects. Capacity planning aims to distribute tasks in a way that prevents this, ensuring no one is overworked which can lead to employee unproductivity and tasks being held up.

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Capacity planning enables your business to know which projects it can take on by recognizing its limits, helping to keep supply and demand to a sustainable level. This is particularly important in businesses where work can ebb and flow, allowing preparations to be made for busier seasons to optimize your capacity. Accounting for this avoids future issues and can help the whole business with its projects by doing the following:

1. Identifying Gaps

Some projects need specific skills or processes to be run that require trained personnel to complete. Identifying these beforehand enables you to ensure you have those people in your team and that they have the time to do these tasks. If there is no one available to fill these gaps or only one person fills the role, team leaders need to hire someone with the necessary skills to make your team high-efficiency.

2. Boosting Capacity

By knowing your business's limitations, you can make informed decisions to boost capacity. This can show where your abilities and skills lie, as well as where more expertise needs to be gained before you can take on more projects. Capacity planning can highlight areas of your team that are lacking, prompting you to hire in those areas when thinking of scaling the business up.

3. Minimizing Costs

Reviewing your capacity before diving into a project can highlight more cost-effective ways of doing processes or tasks. This may be making a full-time hire, training up existing employees in the skills you need, or hosting demonstrations on how to record cell phone calls or other skills. By looking from a new perspective, different options become available to your business.

How to Use Resource and Capacity Planning Together

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Using just resource or capacity planning can be useful, however, it is likely to miss some important project details by centering solely either on the tools or the abilities needed. In reality, projects need both to run smoothly. How you use them should be tailored to your business, taking into account the nuances of your projects. That being said, here’s an idea of how to get started with using both in your project management:

1. Draw Out a Project Timeline

Both resource and capacity planning focus on what skills and tools are needed throughout your project. Drawing these onto a project timeline gives an overall impression of where the greatest capacity is required alongside the resources your team plans on using. If you have all the resources but not enough people to use them, you’re still going to have limited utilization rates.

Project timelines highlight the priority tasks in the project and identify where delays or challenges are likely to be. When setting deadlines, the timeline can show when tasks will realistically be done by. Likewise, this can be used for booking out resources or hiring extra capacity at key moments in your processes, such as for exploratory tests or reviewing.

2. Track Your Team

As you assign work to different team members, keep a track of the tasks they are responsible for. Not all tasks take equal effort, so consider this before delegating them additional work. Overburdening the members of your team can create delays and bottlenecks in your processes, so anticipate where this may happen and share the load with others.

Where parts of your project or resources do become dependent on one person, find a way to train another team member in that area or expand your team to include others who know how to forward calls from landline to cell phone or other technical skills when needed, sharing the responsibility. This ensures work is allocated evenly, as well as resources are being used.

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3. Check Available Resources

Similarly, keep an eye on where resources are being used and when they are available. Having your project timeline in place means that you can schedule your processes and tasks around when the resources can be used. Whether this is software, tools, or skills in your team, your project will only be delayed if you start it without planning these.

Checking your resources also highlights where additional tools or skilled team members need to be hired and sourced. Sorting this out before starting a project allows for these to be properly introduced and integrated into the team and processes, rather than bringing them in partway through. Also, it provides a chance to see resource gaps and find new solutions for them.

4. Review Your Process

By using both resource and capacity planning, you may identify challenges within your project management strategy. Before starting your project, review your process and resolve any problems. This may be by sourcing different resources, hiring new team members, or comparing different methods, such as affiliate marketing vs dropshipping, to achieve your aims.

Changing and reviewing your process can make it more effective and a better use of the time and tools you have available to you. While some processes may be able to happen simultaneously, others should happen at a time when the appropriate equipment and personnel are on hand. Knowing which these are, assists your deadline setting and overall project management.

Resource vs Capacity Planning - You Decide

How you use resources and capacity planning can affect your online reputation management, the ability for teamwork, and overall business management. Using some techniques from both can improve the outcomes of your projects by anticipating easily avoidable challenges and delays. However, the capacity of your team and the resources available to them are individual to your business and projects.

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Using a combination of the two can take some learning to adapt to. Whilst there is software and tools to help your planning, you have to decide what your priorities are and where compromises can be made. The more practice you have in using resource and capacity planning together, the easier it will become, ensuring your teams can complete their projects by planning.

Need more help? Check out the Zentao blog. They have more articles on project management, software management, building cross-functional teams, and so much more.

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Author bio :

Jenna Bunnell - Senior Manager, Content Marketing, Dialpad

Jenna Bunnell is the Senior Manager for Content Marketing at Dialpad, an AI-incorporated cloud-hosted unified communications system like VoIP service with caller ID that provides valuable call details for business owners and sales representatives. She is driven and passionate about communicating a brand’s design sensibility and visualizing how content can be presented in creative and comprehensive ways. Jenna Bunnell also published articles for domains such as SME News and Together Platform. Check out her LinkedIn profile.