Ten Ways Resource Planning Can Make a Difference for Architecture and Engineering Firms

Download Deltek’s free eBook: “Resource Planning for Dummies” Now

Resource planning can seem downright magical in terms of how it helps your business prosper. Here are 10 ways that resource management can make a big difference for your AE firm, your resources, and your financials.

1.     It’s Like a Crystal Ball

Project management has traditionally involved a lot of looking back — measuring how a project has been going by tracking where it has been. Everyone can learn something from the past, but it’s even more helpful to be able to track the present in real time and be in close touch with where a project is headed in the future. A system with resource planning can help enable that kind of proactive thinking about projects and resources.

2.     It Can Help You Win Business

For project‐based businesses like AE firms, the expertise of your people is the main product you’re selling. How in the world can you bid on projects, and win them, if you don’t have a clear picture of what people resources are and will be available, what skills they offer, and how much they’ll cost? Resource planning can help your sales team craft bids that are realistic and fair — bids that have a better chance of winning, and a better chance of being profitable if you’re chosen for the job.

3.     It Can Inform Hiring Decisions

Hiring new people takes a lot of time, and it costs a lot of money. Everyone is better off if you can get a good head start hiring when you win new projects, so that the new resources are in place when the project starts. Or, perhaps you’re better off subcontracting and not hiring for a particular task. How in the world do you know what the best approach is? Resource planning will help those who are doing the hiring have some idea of what is in the sales pipeline, while deals are still being made.

4.     It Focuses on Employee Satisfaction

Hiring new employees can be time consuming and expensive, and it slows down processes and progress. Better to keep your existing employees happy and engaged, so they’ll stick around. Resource planning helps keep employees happy, because you can place them in the right challenges, and also keep track of their aspirations and readiness for something different.

5.     It Can Squeeze Profits Out of Thin Air

You’d be amazed how much more profitable your company can be if you could only get just a little bit more billable productivity out of each employee. It really adds up, even if all you gain is a few extra billable hours a month from each employee. That’s barely noticeable for the employee, but huge on the bottom line, and resource planning can help make it happen.

6.     It Can Be a Peacemaker

If your company is like most, there’s a little bit of tension between your sales team and the services team that will deliver the project. The services team thinks the sales team is over‐promising, and the sales team thinks the services team is under‐delivering. Resource planning helps the sales team make promises that are grounded in reality, and it allows the services team to play a greater role in helping to prepare proposals. Understanding is greater, arguments are fewer.

7.     It Can Ease the Pain of Change

During project execution, change really is the norm. Resource planning helps you to adapt well to changing circumstances. If you need more people, or if some of your team drops off, resource planning provides a detailed roster of whom you might add to the project. You’ll have insights into availability, skills, and costs. It’s also helpful as people roll on or roll off of projects midstream.

8.     It Helps Track New Skills

Most employees want to learn and grow in their jobs, and if you play your cards right, they may learn on the job. The project they’re on may stretch their skills, or teach them new skills, or put them in a greater level of responsibility or supervision. These are good things, and resource planning can help you keep track of these advances to ensure that you’re billing properly and providing an enriching employee experience.

9.     It’s a Roadmap to the Next Stop

As projects near their close, resource planning steps in to help you figure out where the players will head next. Some may be ready to roll right onto the next project, while others may benefit from some training, and some time handling non-billable corporate tasks, that kind of thing. You want to maximize billable hours, but at the same time, avoid burning out valuable employees.

10. It Helps You Repeat Your Successes

When things go right, you want them to keep on going right. Resource planning is all about that. Proper tracking in the closeout phase can help you determine what about your team’s efforts really worked, and what didn’t. You can then maximize the good and fix the less‐than good. You can even take a report from a successful project and turn it into a template for landing and executing the next similar project. That’ll save you a whole bunch of time and trouble, and make it all the more likely that success will breed more success.

Next Steps

Learn how Deltek’s solutions for architecture and engineering firms will improve your resource management, budgeting and forecasting. Keep all of your projects on track and maximize your profitability with resource planning.

• Learn more about Deltek’s solutions with resource planning for architecture and engineering firms: Ajera and Vision and Deltek for Professional Services
• Download Deltek’s eBook: “Resource Planning for Dummies” Now