Almost every organization will tell you that their people are their most valuable asset, and it’s true. But historically, those same organizations haven’t been very good at managing their people resources. Some resources find themselves under-allocated, some over-allocated, and projects frequently stall because of bottlenecks and single points of expertise. And that’s not even the worst of it.
Critical strategic work can be delayed before it even starts because forecasts of upcoming resourcing needs are inaccurate, missing, or arrive too late. Organizations find themselves with the right number of people but the wrong mix of skills because they only have visibility into resource capacity, not resource capability. And of course, the resources themselves are stressed, frustrated and at risk of disengaging – or leaving because their employer can’t figure out what they want individuals to do and when.
There are a number of reasons why these problems continue to occur frequently in so many organizations. The lack of a single, consolidated view of all resource demand and allocations across all business areas is a big part of the issue. So too is the similar lack of visibility into resource needs across different work types – discretionary, operations and support; as well as across different approaches to discretionary initiatives – traditional, agile and hybrid.
In addition, when things change, as they inevitably do during the execution of work, those adjustments aren’t captured completely, accurately or in a timely manner, meaning that even the incomplete information available to support resource management can’t be trusted. And that’s just for the current work.
Organizations also struggle to accurately predict future resource needs. This results in delays in hiring, contracting and training that has a knock-on impact on the ability to start work, delaying the time to value and directly hurting returns on investments.
All of these resource management challenges come down to one fundamental issue, the lack of insight into resources, their current allocations and future needs. The use of multiple, disconnected tools; the lack of connection between planning work and delivering work; and the inability to consolidate work across multiple approaches and structures all contribute to this problem.
ServiceNow’s SPM (strategic portfolio management) solution provides organizations with the ability to connect strategic priorities directly with investments and work, providing complete clarity into the work that needs doing in any period along with the number of people and skills required to deliver. Because all demand is captured in one place, that view provides insight into all resource demand, allowing gaps between current and future capacity and capabilities to be addressed before they become a problem.
In the latest store release, ServiceNow Strategic Portfolio Management (SPM) introduced the Resource Management Workspace that allows users to view all work across all resources in a single pane to effectively and proactively manage resources across the organization. Because SPM integrates with ServiceNow’s Now platform, stakeholders have a view of resource demand and availability across all work – operations, support and discretionary in one place. Finally, resource management can be the way it always should have been, and that’s good news for the bottom line.
