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IT Resource Management Global Study: Executive Summary [#pmot]

Recently, we published  the “IT Resource Management Maturity – Global Study Results” white paper. Blog followers have already been previewing results and interesting conclusions as they have become available during the data collection process. In this article, we review all of the broad observations and conclusions that can be drawn from the study results and list them in one place (i.e., this post). To put it all in context,  however, you should download the complete 43-page document from the Instantis web site which synthesizes the survey results from over 500 participating indusry and government organizations.

Here goes...

• In general, overall resource and capacity management maturity levels (based on mean, mode or median calculations) are low with respect to the optimal and achievable level of maturity.

• Regardless of respondent role, perceptions of overall maturity levels track similarly with the exception of “IT executives and managers” who tend to have a higher opinion of overall maturity relative to other respondent groups.

• In terms of the “granularity” of resource assignments, the plurality of organizations only track “who is working on what,” but a significant number of organizations support a process that not only allows for allocation of a partial resource for the duration of a project (e.g. 50% average fixed duration), but can vary allocations within the duration of a project (e.g., 25% in May; 50% in June).

• When assigning resources to projects, most organizations can specify distinct roles like database administrator, business analyst, etc., but do not go beyond specifying basic attributes like cost rate. 

• In general cost planning is performed at the project level. The natural progression of maturity beyond project cost tracking is to track aggregate resource cost (capacity) before focusing on planned cost for each individual resource.

• A strong plurality of organizations formally integrates project priority information into their resource approval process.

• By default the resource management process is owned by a resource or line manager in a strong plurality of organizations, reflecting an immaturity in governance structure which is consistent with the low overall level of resource management process maturity.

• In terms of benefits achieved by their current resource management process, organizations are most adept at achieving basic resource visibility, ensuring higher priority projects are resourced and managing individual utilization rates.

• The largest gap between achieved and desired benefits and the most significant challenge relate to the ability of the resource management process to positively impact project outcomes by ensuring that the right resources are assigned quickly.

• Organizations struggle with the process of allocating, assigning, and deploying resources efficiently and systematically. There is particular angst in inventorying skills and locating the right resource for the job in a timely manner.

• It appears that there is a “sweet spot” not only in terms of the ideal maturity level for most organizations, but a sweet spot in terms of the number of resources managed in order to achieve the highest level of maturity (101-500).

• Maturity levels track in a similar pattern regardless of whether or not the scope of the resource management process or PMO governance pertains to a single site or spans a globally distributed resource pool.

• Interestingly, moving beyond simple “work visibility” doesn’t seem to be easier to achieve if your resources are all located in a single site versus being globally deployed. And, the higher levels of resource management maturity are no more attractive or achievable when resources are consolidated versus dispersed geographically.

• Resource management maturity levels do vary dramatically by geography, especially when comparing the major geographic regions (North America, Europe and Asia).