Parmatur Pulse – Resource pulse meetings

Resource pulse meetings ensures that the individuals are not overburdened or scattered via a resource pulse board and magnets.

Resource pulse meetings is conducted immediately after the program pulse meeting.

Visualization

Put up a resource pulse board as above with ongoing projects and magnets for all resources that can be allocated to projects and assignments.

Each individual has two magnets labelled with their name and department. Two magnetes together means allocated full time. One magnet means allocated part time. Since the magnets are available in a limited number, they will act as a “Kanban” to limit the amount of work in progress for each individual.

Resource shortages can be signalled with a red magnet or a red post-it note. One red magnet can be added for every week that passes without the resource problem being solved.

If it is important to make sure that the project is not using more resources than budget (see Synchronisation plan), the project’s resource plan can be put up on the resource pulse board.

Basic rules

All individuals working with product development are guided by resource pulse.

Magnets can only be removed from a project by the project manager when work done by that individual has been finished. It is important not to interrupt work in progress.

When an individual is not connected to a project team, the individual is at the disposal of the assignment pulse.

Magnets are moved at resource pulse. The magnets (the individuals) are moved by the resource manager (the line manager). But the resource manager and the individual have had a dialogue before the resource pulse.

If the project needs more resources or other resources, this is signalled on the resource pulse board, or by a request in advance. Project managers should ask for specific competences for their projects, not individuals.

To borrow resources short term between projects may be permitted. The decision is taken at a program pulse meeting.

How to perform resource pulse meeting – agenda

Resource pulse meeting is conducted weekly to take care of any resource conflicts and to allocate resource according to new needs. Participants are resource managers, project managers and assignment manager. Someone is appointed to chair the resource pulse meeting, preferably a member from the portfolio team.

General agenda for the resource pulse meeting

1. Project managers remove resources that are no longer needed from the projects.
2. Go in order of priority. The project manager states if there is any need for more resources (competences) than the ones already allocated to the project.
3. The resource managers review the needs and allocate available resources (individuals) to fill in the gaps. Consider what results could be completed this week with the available resources. Don´t move resources that will interrupt work in progress and create waste. Any resource issue should be presented to the resource managers for a solution. To handle the problem, it may however in the end be necessary to re-plan in the project. The project manager should in that case show the consequences in terms of thime schedule, costs and quality.
4. Assignments are generally allocated last, but the assignment managers will have to make sure that the decided share of the resources over time is allocated to assignments. If there are critical assignments (for example claims) they could be allocated before the projects.

Decisions are logged in the decision log. Any shortage of resources is logged in the decision log as it has consequences for the projects.