PM Series - Resource Planning, with Jennie Swenson

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In the second episode of our series on BI project management, Brick interviews Jennie Swenson, Director of the PMO for Blue Margin, to discuss resource planning during a BI project. They discuss the factors to consider in initially assigning work to engineers, and the things that might cause the need for changes during project execution.

Blue Margin helps private equity owned and mid-market companies organize their data into dashboards to execute on strategy and create a culture of accountability. We call it The Dashboard Effect, the title of our book and podcast. 

 Visit Blue Margin's library of additional BI resources here.

For a free, downloadable copy of our book, The Dashboard Effect, click here, or buy a hardcopy or Kindle version on Amazon.

#projectmanagement #PM #BI #resourceplanning #businessintelligence #reporting #dashboard #datawarehouse

Transcript

Brick Thompson: 0:04

Welcome to The Dashboard Effect Podcast, I'm Brick Thompson. And today I have with me again, Jennie Swenson, who's our Director of the PMO. And today, we're going to continue our PM series that we started last week with Anne Eisenach. And so today we're going to be talking about resource planning, which is sort of part of scoping, but also comes after scoping. How's it going Jennie?

Jennie Swenson: 0:28

Pretty good, how are you Brick?

Brick Thompson: 0:29

I'm good. Thanks. So let's talk about resource planning. Where does resource planning come into the picture?

Jennie Swenson: 0:37

Yeah, so resource planning in our organization actually comes in at several points through a project's lifecycle, and even in the sales lifecycle. It really starts in the scoping process, which Anne talked about a lot last week, and then it also continues throughout executing.

Brick Thompson: 0:55

Okay, so when you're doing scoping, you're starting your resource planning, but then as you're executing, you still have to be sort of reevaluating as you go.

Jennie Swenson: 1:05

Exactly.

Brick Thompson: 1:05

Okay, cool. So let's talk through those. I think first, what are the goals of resource planning?

Jennie Swenson: 1:13

Yeah, the goals are many. Primarily, the goal of resource planning is really to allow us to maximize profitability by way of ensuring we have the right resources on the right type of work, and also that we're going to be able to deliver on time for our clients.

Brick Thompson: 1:32

Okay, so productivity, delivery on time, and then obviously, it has to work for us, just economically, you know, commercially making a profit. So you sort of have three constraints there that you have to balance all that. That seems like if you do a good job on productivity, and maximizing utilization and so on, hopefully the other two sort of fall out of that.

Jennie Swenson: 1:55

Yeah, exactly.

Brick Thompson: 1:57

Okay, so and was talking about scoping. We talked about sort of the conceptual scoping, and then the tactical scoping. Where does the resource planning come into that?

Jennie Swenson: 2:09

Yeah. So in the scoping activity, we're actually gathering really important inputs to the resource planning activity. First, we really need to understand what type of work needs to be done. And then in that discussion, we're also figuring out skill to scope. Who are the appropriate folks to complete this type of work? So that's really in our pre sales process, we're planning out our projects, we're really assessing those types of things in order to be able to do resource planning effectively.

Brick Thompson: 2:37

Okay. And when you're thinking about who, you're thinking about, I'm sure, a number of factors. First of all, who's available? Who's not going to be on vacation during the expected time period of the project? Who has the technical skills that you need for this project? Who can work at the pace that you need in this type of area? Those types of things. Did I miss anything?

Jennie Swenson: 3:00

Exactly, just as you said, really making sure it's the right resource. So we have various levels of skills within our organization just based on tenure, and also background, and also disciplines. We have good architects, we have visualization engineers, we have folks who are very skilled at design and strategic thinking for our clients, and then we have very skilled folks who write DAX to support our reporting and such. So we pay close attention to those types of skills, when we're looking at assigning work to our resources. We also look at who has the relationship with the client? We work with our clients, we've said this before, sometimes for many years at a time. We really like to keep continuity with the project team wherever possible, so we're thinking about that. Again, like you noted out of office, our folks do take vacation, fortunately for them, so we pay attention to that. We look at where they're currently allocated, and how much on what type of project? And then we're also thinking about our larger portfolio, and what are the priorities within that? What do we what do we need to accomplish first, second, and third? Things like that?

Brick Thompson: 4:01

Yeah, what projects might be coming down the line and so on. I would imagine the relationship and history with the client is not just that the client knows them, and they know the client, so they get along and know each other, but also, just bringing in that context allows you to get a lot of efficiency,

Jennie Swenson: 4:18

Exactly, yes, the relationship is the context of the business, the business goals, the larger strategic objectives of the organization, the solution, all of that.

Brick Thompson: 4:27

Yeah. So when you're doing this in the sort of pre-SOW period, you've got a bunch of potential projects that might be happening on potential timelines. How do you consider that? Are you are you considering, "Okay, I think that one's going to happen in this time period, so we won't plan there? How can you do that? Since they're not signed, you don't know which one is going to happen when?

Jennie Swenson: 4:52

Yeah, that's been a big puzzle for us. How we've solved it most recently, is primarily on a first come first serve basis. So during scoping we're really looking at who could potentially do this project work. But as we get closer to the proposal going out in front of the client, we have a more intentional discussion about what's currently out in terms of SOW how the project team has been allocated to that work, where the where the slots that can be filled, and so we do some tentative assignments. Occasionally, we're able to work with the client to have more of a generalized project start, that gives us a little bit more flexibility in how we assign resources. So again, we can keep it very general. So we sort of approach it in two ways that way.

Brick Thompson: 5:37

And I'm sure you've had situations where you had the puzzle solved, you had it perfectly laid out. And then a project that you thought was gonna start next Monday against pushed for two weeks or something like that. And now you've got to redo the whole puzzle.

Jennie Swenson: 5:51

Exactly. Yeah, we shift things around a lot. Fortunately, our teams are really flexible. So they understand that our business changes very fast. And we're constantly responding to deals coming in the door and new deals, existing clients asking for new work, things like that.

Brick Thompson: 6:08

Yeah, okay, my mind is kind of reeling thinking about solving that.

Jennie Swenson: 6:15

We've tried a lot of different things, I think we're still really trying to figure out exactly the right thing. But we've gotten a lot closer.

Brick Thompson: 6:22

Yeah, I know you have various tools you use, but in the end, it sort of comes down to, "Okay, I need to apply my logical thinking brain to this and figure it out."

Jennie Swenson: 6:30

Yeah, we have a lot of discussions with the team too, just figuring out who can take what when. We've tried to put data to it, and of course, being a reporting organization, we want everything to shape up in a Power BI report. And we've tried that. And that does help give us some visibility, but ultimately it just comes down to the engineers helping us understand what gaps they have to fill.

Brick Thompson: 6:53

From the outside, it seems like it just works. I'm guessing it's a lot harder than that.

Jennie Swenson: 6:59

I feel like there's been some luck in there somehow, and I'm waiting for it to run out. But somehow it does sometimes just work.

Brick Thompson: 7:05

Okay. So what else in the pre-SOW period, anything that we didn't cover to consider about resource planning?

Jennie Swenson: 7:14

I think we covered most of what we what we do during that.

Brick Thompson: 7:18

Okay, so basically, it's looking at what projects we have in flight, what potential projects we have coming? Who's the right fit for specific projects? Who's going to be in the office? Who knows the client? Who has the right skill set for this particular job? Sounds easy.

Jennie Swenson: 7:33

You make it sound so easy.

Brick Thompson: 7:36

Okay, so then once the deal is signed, and you start executing, what are your considerations, then? You know, I'm guessing that surprises come up.

Jennie Swenson: 7:47

Yeah, that's right. So I was thinking this through, and really, it's that more tactical week over week resource planning, where the productivity really comes to fruition. So we meet with our team several times a week, and do intentional planning, two weeks at a time. So during scoping, we're really looking at a high level timeline. We're planning in terms of weeks. Once we get into executing, we're really planning in terms of days, and sometimes even hours. So it's in that activity that we're able to identify efficiencies within a week, where we can potentially leverage team members on new project work or potentially to help in a project that maybe needs a little bit of a boost. But we do go through that exercise multiple times a week on all of our projects.

Brick Thompson: 8:36

And I know you're meeting with each of the client's stakeholders once a week for project status updates, and I'm guessing that becomes the data that helps to feed these internal planning sessions, where you now consider the whole project portfolio and figure out if there's any adjustments you need to make.

Jennie Swenson: 8:53

Yeah, that's right.

Brick Thompson: 8:53

So whats an adjustment that might come up? What's an example?

Jennie Swenson: 8:58

Well, a very good example was really just that, ultimately, in a technical project, there are so many unknowns. We do a good bit of design and discovery prior to engaging in development work, but we more often than not uncover things that we did not see coming.

Brick Thompson: 9:14

Okay, so maybe the client is we were talking to them in the pre-SOW phase didn't realize, "Oh, there actually is another couple of databases that feed into this." And we didn't discover that, and so then we find that out when we're executing.

Jennie Swenson: 9:28

Exactly. I can think of an example where we did receive incomplete information prior to starting a project. We felt like we had everything that we needed, and as we got through the project, we uncovered there were going to be additional data sources needed. Fortunately, we were able to work with the client and reset the scope to accommodate those. But even still, we thought we had everything. We got in again, and more was uncovered. And so it was in that case that we were able to just leverage some excess capacity on the rest of the team in order to just get that project back on track.

Brick Thompson: 9:58

Yeah, that's great. So yeah, if you end up with that, I guess it's possible you're sort of resetting the project with the client and saying, "Hey, this is a larger project than we thought." But if we've got the excess capacity, it's a couple days of, "Let's work hard and get it back within the bounds," then we're going to do that.

Jennie Swenson: 10:16

Exactly, yeah. And there's occasional cases where we have to look at the whole portfolio and see where we could potentially tolerate a little bit of a delay, or just maybe being a little bit lighter touch on the work for that, so that we can swarm an issue on another project that needs some help.

Brick Thompson: 10:30

Yeah, that makes sense. I'm guessing also, you may end up in situations where there's a technical challenge that you didn't expect. So there wasn't really a scope situation, but you get in and it's just more complicated than the current team that's assigned, or maybe a team member that's assigned, has dealt with before, and you may have another resource that could solve it. And you've got to figure out than, "Alright, how do we schedule that in and still handle their other responsibilities?"

Jennie Swenson: 10:58

Exactly. Yeah, we see that quite a lot, actually.

Brick Thompson: 11:01

So I'm sure, knowing you, you're working towards, "How do we automate this as much as possible?" And I'm guessing that you do have some tools already to help that is not really automation, but probably spreadsheets, Microsoft DevOps and various things. Do you think you can ever get this to a point where it's just dialed in and you can get a report and you can see, "Okay, I need this type of resource. Let me run the report. There it is."

Jennie Swenson: 11:28

That's my dream. One of the benefits of transitioning to a fixed model was that we felt like we didn't have to be so granular in our planning and in our capacity and utilization monitoring. We had a little more wiggle room in that, just based on our our model

Brick Thompson: 11:45

The fixed price model?

Jennie Swenson: 11:46

The fixed price model.

Brick Thompson: 11:47

Fixed price and a set duration, set scope. So if you need to work 12 hour days to get it done, you do that. Hopefully not, but you know.

Jennie Swenson: 11:54

Hopefully not, but in our past, we had planned out our entire project ahead of time, down to the hour, we could see six weeks in advance theoretically, where the effort might be landing. We've moved away from that. So we have a little less visibility into where the effort is going to be by person, and by project, We do leverage an Excel spreadsheet for our strategic resource planning, where we're just really mapping out at a very high level, similar to what Anne described for initial scoping effort, where the effort is going to be spent on a project and with which resource. And then once we get into our more weekly discussions, we leverage DevOps, and there is a lightweight capacity tool in there that we can use to flag potential issues with work and capacity.

Brick Thompson: 12:46

How much do you involve the engineers in that planning? Are they at the table for that? Or do you sort of do the planning and then go and meet with them to problem solve?

Jennie Swenson: 12:55

So as far as the resource planning, we do leverage some members of the team in order to make sure we've got the right skill sets matched to the work? Primarily our lead our delivery leadership staff helps us with that. And then we do also just lean on the resources on a project to help us understand if they need assistance from other types of resources or some other skill set that we need to bring to the table.

Brick Thompson: 13:14

Yeah, okay. All right. What are the challenges around that execution piece?

Jennie Swenson: 13:21

I think that probably the biggest challenge is that our projects move very quickly. We move very fast we hear that from our clients all the time. It can be really hard to be proactive. We may finish a task or a large milestone a few days early, and we have resources available for two days before they start on their next major effort. It can be difficult to figure out where they can potentially assist on another project within the portfolio to help another team out. The spin up time occasionally doesn't make sense. And so I think that's probably the biggest challenge, really figuring out how well to leverage or how do we leverage those efficiencies in a way that makes sense.

Brick Thompson: 13:59

And so when when you get a little piece of extra capacity, it can be hard to actually use that because there's some amount of time to spin up. And then they need to be on it a long enough time for it to be worth doing that. Exactly. And so you can end up with people who are sort of on the bench waiting for the next project. And how do you how do you juggle that?

Jennie Swenson: 14:20

Exactly. Yeah. And I think what we're grappling with most, at least what I'm grappling with the most at this point is, "What's the right level of granularity to be managing our upcoming capacity?" At a point, there's diminishing returns. You know, at one point, we were down to the 10th of an hour figuring out how do we fill every six minutes. And so we're just trying to figure out what is the right level that ensures that we're going to maximize our profits, and we're going to have the right folks executing. We definitely want to be sure we're not burning our people out, but we're using them to their fullest potential.

Brick Thompson: 14:53

Yeah. And delivering high quality, on time, obviously, within all of that. Right. Okay. All right. Well, what other thoughts do you have on this?

Jennie Swenson: 15:04

I think we covered a lot of what I was hoping to cover today, just understanding the process, talking a little bit through the tools.

Brick Thompson: 15:12

Well, I think as you continue to develop this, we should revisit it. Like if you solve it, you've got the master Excel sheet and DevOps and Power BI combination, let's come back to it as you keep learning about it.

Jennie Swenson: 15:27

I'd love to.

Brick Thompson: 15:28

Again, from the outside, you make it look easy. So whatever you're doing is working, but sounds like it's a lot of brain calories to get that done.

Jennie Swenson: 15:35

Thanks. Yeah, we're looking forward to continuing to figure out how to how to solve this puzzle.

Brick Thompson: 15:40

Okay. Well, I appreciate you stopping by, this was great, and we'll talk to you again soon.

Jennie Swenson: 15:45

Sounds good, thanks Brick.