Greetings community members!

In recent past I have noticed questions on operational resource plans via multiple posts. To answer all those questions, I have created this article. In this, I will focus mainly on operational resource plans and will cover following points:

1. What is an Operational Resource Plan?

2. Need of operational resource plan

3. When to create an operational resource plan

4. Different fields of an operational resource plan form & their significance / usage5. Explanation with an example6. Impact on resource’s availability on creating operational resource plan

7. Frequently asked questions

Resource Plans:

As we know, resource plan is the basic building block to request and manage resources for any type of work in PPM.

Work can be categorized as run vs build or run vs grow. Main difference between the two are:

Run	Build
Maintain the existing business functionalities.	Enhance & expand business capabilities.
These activities are also known as “Business as usual”, “KTLO” or “Sustaining IT”, "Maintenance work" etc.	These activities can be project work or solution development etc.
Achieved via operational resource plans	Achieved via non-operational resource plans.

Let's focus mainly on the operational resource plan in this article.

Define Operational Resource PlanOperational resource plan is a way to keep aside a portion of team’s capacity for operational work.

Typically, resource manager creates an operational resource plan for her team. Often these plans are created for longer duration such as one year to plan for operational work in advance.

Need of Operational Resource PlanIn an organization, resources spend some of their time on the activities which are not related to project work. Operational resource plan should be created, in order to plan for these activities in advance.

Examples of non-project work could be Meeting, Training, KTLO activities, admin work etc.

When To Create An Operational Resource Plan?

As a best practice, capacity for operational work should be planned in the beginning of the year or quarter.

Operational Resource Plan Form & Its Fields:1. Select ‘Create New Operational Plan’ from left navigation pane.

2. Operational resource plan form will open as shown in below screenshot:

3. Let’s discuss the fields and their values available on operational resource plan. I will cover when to select which value.

a. Number: This is auto-generated resource plan number. Just leave this value "as is"

b. Resource Type: It has three values: i. Group ii. User iii. Role

Based on the requirement, you can create the operational resource plan for specific group, role or user by selecting one of these values.

Default Value: Group

c. Group / Role / User: Field below ‘Resource type’ depends on the value selected in ‘Resource type’. Based on whether Group/User/Role is selected in ‘Resource type’, the next field will be Group / User / Role. It allows you to select the desired group/role/user for which this operational resource plans is to be created.

For example: In above screenshot, I have selected Group in the 'Resource type' that is why the very next field is Group.

d. Member Preference: It has two values: i. All Members

ii. Specific Members

Whether capacity for operational work is to be set aside for all the members of the group / role or for selected members, you can select one of the above two values.

Note: 'Member Preference' field is not available when ‘Resource type’ is selected as ‘User’.

e. Skills: Allows to select specific skills for group / role members.

Note*:* This field is not available when ‘Resource type’ is selected as ‘User’.

f. Request Type: It has two values: i. Hours

ii. %Capacity

By selecting hours, you can set aside specific number of hours for a group / role / user for operational work.

Typically, deciding number of hours for operational work especially for group / role members becomes tricky for resource manager hence better option is to use %capacity.

By using %capacity, you can set aside specific capacity for operational work.

For example: Organization has a mandate for employees to spend 10% of their capacity on learning new stuff. To achieve this, resource manager can create an operational resource plan for Training by selecting request type as %capacity.

Default Value: Hours

g. Planned Hours / %Capacity: This is the field below ‘Request type’. It depends upon the value selected in ‘Resource type’ field.

Based on whether Hours / %Capacity was selected in ‘Request type’, the next field will be ‘Planned hours’ or %Capacity.

Note: %Capacity will not be available if Hours was selected in ‘Request type’

h. Planned Hours: System always populates this field irrespective of the value selected in ‘Request type’ is hours or %capacity.

System converts the %capacity value into hours and value is populated in 'Planned hours' field.

i. Confirmed / Allocated Hours: This field is auto- populated on allocating resource plan.

j. Name: This is to provide a name to operational resource plan.

k. Operational work type: This field provides the different types available out of the box for planning the operational work. This list is configurable.

l. Rate Model: If populated, the planned cost and confirmed / allocated cost is calculated based on the rates defined in the rate model.

Note: If matching rate is not found in the rate model, system considers out of the box default rate i.e. $50 per hour.

m. Start Date & End Date: Defines the duration for which the operational resource plan will be effective.

n. Allocation Type: It has three values: i. Weekly ii. Monthly iii. Plan duration Value selected in this field decides the allocation records created for resource plan.

Default Value: Monthly

If you want to track the planned hours / cost and per resource’s allocated hours / cost at monthly level, then select Monthly. If the requirement is to track planned hours / cost and per resource’s allocated hours / cost at week level, then select Weekly.

However, if you just want to know the overall planned hours / cost and per resource’s allocated hours / cost for the whole resource plan duration then choose Plan Duration.

o. Allocation Spread: It has two values: i. Even

ii. Front load

Default Value: Even

If the requirement is to evenly allocate the hours, then select Even otherwise select Front load.

How it works? System evenly divides the total number of hours per time period.

Then the hours of every time period are divided between resources either evenly or in a front load fashion depending upon the value selected in this field.

Point to Note: Irrespective of even or Front load the initial distribution of total hours between time periods happens in evenly manner. This considers the total number of working days in every time period.

p. State: On creation, operational resource plan is in requested state. Once Allocated, the state changes to Allocated.

q. Planned cost: This is calculated as hourly rate * number of hours

Note: If Rate model is configured on the resource plan, system will fetch the group rate from rate model. If matching rate is not found, system will fall back to out of the box standard rate of $50 per hour.

r. Confirmed / Allocated Cost: This is calculated for per resource as

Sum of every resource’s hourly rate * number of hours

EXAMPLE: Let’s understand this with an example of group operational resource plan.

Scenario: It’s mandatory for the members of App Security group to spend 10% of their capacity in July and August months in learning new stuff.

To accomplish the above mandate, resource manager creates an operational resource plan for App Security group for 10% capacity for Jul and Aug, 2020.

Before creating operational resource plan for this group, let’s take a look at the data setup

Group Details:Group Name: App SecurityNumber of members in group = 2Each resource’s per day capacity = 8 hours

Both resources are available throughout both the months; no planned leave.

Group and Its Members’ Rate: Defined as following via rate model.Group Hourly rate = $150Jeff Grey’s hourly rate = $100

Clay Bresher’s hourly rate = $100

Operational Resource Plan Creation:

Let’s understand one by one each field’s calculation as a result of creating this resource plan. Note: This resource plan is in requested state, not yet allocated.

Number of working days in Jul = 23

Number of working days in Aug =21

Total Planned hours for group for 2 months = (23 * 8 * 2) + (21 * 8 * 2) = 368 + 336 = 704

Planned hours for 10% capacity for 2 months = 704 * 0.10 = 70.4 = 70

Per day planned hours for group = 16

Per day planned hours by 10 % of capacity = 16 * 0.10 = 1.6

If the number of working days were equal in Jul & Aug, we would have got 35 (70 / 2) planned hours in each month but that is not the case. July has 2 working days more than Aug hence

| | July, 2020 | August, 2020 | |
| ------------- | --------------------- | --------------------- |
| Planned hours | 23 * 1.6 = 36.8 = 36 | 21 * 1.6 = 33.6 = 34 |
| Planned cost | 36 * 150 = 5400 | 34 * 150 = 5100 |

As explained above, showing the values in application via screenshot, refer below.

Planned Cost is calculated as group cost * number of hours.

Planned cost = 70 * 150 = $10,500

Impact of Allocation Type = Monthly:Since this operational resource plan is created for 2 months & allocation type is ‘Monthly’.

In Requested Allocations: One requested allocation record for each month will get created.

This helps in tracking the planned hours and planned cost at monthly level

In Resource Allocations: After the resource plan gets allocated, one record per resource per month will be created.

This helps in tracking the allocated hours and allocated cost per resource at monthly level.

Now let’s allocate this operational resource plan.

On allocating the resource plan, notice following fields are auto-populated:1. Confirmed / Allocated hours2. Confirmed / Allocated cost

3. Allocation records under ‘Resource Allocations’ tab because now resources are allocated to plan

Let’s understand the how the value of each field is calculated, in this case.

Confirmed / Allocated Cost = Each resource’s hourly rate per month * number of allocated hours.Jeff’s Confirmed / Allocated Cost for July = 18 * 100 = $1800Clay’s Confirmed / Allocated Cost for July = 18 * 100 = $1800Jeff’s Confirmed / Allocated Cost for Aug = 17 * 100 = $1700

Clay’s Confirmed / Allocated Cost for Aug = 17 * 100 = $1700

Confirmed / Allocated Cost for operational resource plan= $1800 + $1800 + $1700 + $1700 = $7000

As explained above, refer the values shown in resource allocations:

Impact of Allocation Spread = Even / Front load

Even / Front load impacts the way hours are allocated at daily level.

If Allocation Spread = Even;

System will evenly distribute hours for each working day

For example: In July month, Jeff is allocated 18 hours.

Due to allocation spread = Even; system will evenly allocate 1 hour on each working day.

If Allocation Spread = Front load

System will try to utilize maximum availability of resource in the beginning of the duration.

For example: If allocated hours for Jeff in July month = 20 hours, Jeff will be allocated 8 hours on first working day, 8 hours on second working day and then remaining 4 hours on the third working day.

Impact on resource’s availability on creating Operational Resource Plan:

For allocated operational resource plan, hours are deducted from the availability of the resource.

Remember, in the beginning (before operational resource plan allocation) the App security group’s allocation details was as shown below:

After allocating 10% capacity via resource plan, 1. The resources are allocated for a specific number of hours2. Availability of the resources is decreased as allocation has taken place

Frequently Asked Questions:

1. Where can I see the hours allocated for operational work? It can be accessed mainly from two places: a) Resource reports

b) Resource Finder section of resource allocation workbench

2. Can I post time for operational resource plans?

Yes.

3. To which project, an operational resource plan is associated with?

Operational resource plans are designed to plan for operational work which is separate from the project work hence operational resource plans are not associated with any project.

Additional Links:

1. For further reading, refer doc link

2. To post your ideas, use Idea Portal link present on this page

Look forward to get your comments and feedback.

Labels:

• Demand Management
• Project Portfolio Management
• Resource Management