Fear No Project Blog – Focusing on the Management Side of Projects

Software development organizations are not immune to the effect of our country’s sustained recession. There is pressure from all sides – senior management, customers and other stakeholders — to cut costs and comply with budgets.  The largest component of project costs and schedule variance fall under the purview of resource management. In my experience, ineffective resource management is one of the primary causes of project failure and its impact is even more important in today’s economic climate.

Smart resource management decisions begin with knowledge. I believe it is important to all of us to understand how organizations are handling resource management — what works, what does not work,  how does it work — and to share that knowledge.  

Cognitive Technologies would appreciate your help.
Project resource management is "the planning, allocating, and scheduling of resources to tasks, generally including manpower, machine, money, and materials. In 2009, Cognitive Technologies supported research on resource management tools and processes. Our findings are posted on our website as well as discussed in three previous posts – (2009 Project Resource Management Survey,  Project Management Resource Survey 2009 – Results, Project Management Resource Survey 2009–Challenges).

In 2010, working with Christina Jackson from The University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business, Cognitive Technologies is conducting a further survey to study resource management practices and their impact on overall project success. The survey contains:

• Basic profile questions about your organization, so that we can determine how practices vary by organization size, type (e.g., commercial, government, non-profit), industry, and how beliefs vary by the title of the respondent
• Questions to assess the usage of resource management tools and processes and the existence of any challenges across organizations

I would sincerely appreciate it if you could take 10 minutes to complete the survey and help us ensure a broad representative sample of project managers and project resource management. You will find the survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/rmsurvey2010. Just press “Continue” at the bottom of the screen to get started.

We will keep your answers strictly confidential. To thank you for participating, you will receive a complimentary gift and a digital copy of the final report including comparison with the 2009 survey in September.