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One of the main challenges of staffing customer projects is ensuring that you have the right skills and expertise available to meet the specific needs of each project. This can be particularly challenging when customer projects are diverse and require a wide range of technical and functional skills. In order to effectively address this challenge, resource pool managers should maintain a thorough understanding of the skills and capabilities of their available resources. This may involve conducting regular skill assessments, keeping detailed records of each resource's expertise, and staying informed about industry trends and emerging technologies.
Another challenge is managing the availability and workload of resources. It is common for resource pool managers to be responsible for allocating resources across multiple projects simultaneously. This can be a complex task, especially when resources are in high demand and have limited availability. In order to address this challenge, resource pool managers have to prioritize projects based on their strategic importance, assess the availability and workload of resources accurately, and communicate effectively with project managers to ensure that resources are allocated effectively.
Additionally, resource pool managers may encounter challenges related to resource allocation and scheduling. It is essential to ensure that resources are utilized efficiently, and that they are allocated to the right projects at the right time. This may involve developing comprehensive resource allocation plans, establishing clear communication channels with project managers, and being adaptable to changes in project scope and requirements.
In order to overcome these challenges, resource pool managers nowadays have to rely on information technology that enable them to streamline the staffing process and cope with the growing number of resources requests.
SAP has therefore added a new cloud-based solution to it’s solution portfolio “SAP Project and Resource Management ” formerly also known as "SAP S/4HANA Cloud for projects". This solution specifically targets the resource planning and staffing process in service industries, but which can be also applied to any other industry managing large pools of project resources for internal and customer projects.
SAP’s latest project resource management solution offers three major capabilities to streamline the staffing process for customer projects.
Specify Resource Requirement
The first capability is to specify the resource requirement, which includes details such as the requested period for resources, total effort in hours, and required skill set for the job. This request can be created manually or automatically pre-filled from related projects in SAP S/4HANA cloud such as Professional Service Projects ( Customer Projects) and Enterprise Projects (planned to be available by August 2024 - Note: Roadmap is subject of change).
Traditional SAP S/4HANA customers with a private cloud or on-premise installation can create project demands in SAP Project and Resource Management using available APIs.
Review Resource Request Details
The Resource Manager receives via the resource request all necessary details to start the resource search process, while the resource requestor can retrieve the latest status and validate assignments.
Search and assign resource to request
The second capability is to search and assign resources to the request, where the resource pool manager can compare and assign resources that match the minimum availability and required skill sets. This ensures that resources are allocated efficiently and effectively. Details from the resource request are automatically used to generate a list of matching resources that full fill the minimum availability and required skill sets. In the Comparison View the resource pool manager can compare multiple resources head -to head to check e.g. Proficiency Level for each skill.
Before hitting the assign button the resource pools manager can adjust how much of the demand should be covered by this resource and in which period. The Quick Assign button skips this step and directly assigns the resource to fully cover the required demand.
Comparison View in the Assignment Section of the Resource request
Optimize the utilization
The third capability is to optimize utilization, allowing resource managers to receive an overview of resource utilization in projects and available capacities for additional project work. This helps in distributing workload and achieving better utilization across all resources.
The Manage Utilization view is great way to quickly retrieve the status of the resource pool showing utilization and assignments per planning period and individual resource. Here the resource pool manager is able to drill down to individual project assignments and adjust the assignments, which allows him to distribute the workload in the team and achieve a better utilization across all resources.
Team Utilization Overview Screen
In order to fully optimize the utilization of a pool of project resources, it is essential to have up-to-date information on their skills and job experience from previous projects. SAP Project and resource Management provides a self-service function that empowers employees to continuously update their skills, qualifications, and proficiency levels after completing new trainings or customer projects.
Maintenance of skills and experiences in Resource Profile View
In conclusion, staffing customer projects as a resource pool manager can be a complex and demanding task. However, by maintaining a comprehensive understanding of available resources, managing resource availability and workload effectively, and leveraging technology to streamline the staffing process, resource pool managers can overcome these challenges and ensure that the right skills and resources are allocated effectively. SAP Project and Resource Management supports organisations with large resources pools to facilitate the collaboration between project managers , resource manager and team members during the entire staffing process. This leads to more accurate information about demands and capacities, shorter staffing cycles and reduced manual backoffice efforts.
For additional information on SAP Project and Resource Management please visit following pages:
Product page on www.sap.com
SAP Community Blog - The Two Project Control Possibilities
SAP Community Blog - How to improve Project Collaboration with Contractors and Suppliers
SAP Help Portal - SAP Project and Resource Management
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