9.3 Acquire Resources PDF

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9.3 ACQUIRE RESOURCES “Acquire Resources is the process of obtaining team members, facilities, equipment, materials, supplies, and other resources necessary to complete project work. The key benefit of this process is that it outlines and guides the selection of resources and assigns them to their respective activities. This process is performed periodically throughout the project as needed. The resources needed for the project can be internal or external to the project-performing organization. Internal resources are acquired (assigned) from functional or resource managers. External resources are acquired through the procurement processes. The project management team may or may not have direct control over resource selection because of collective bargaining agreements, use of subcontractor personnel, a matrix project environment, internal or external reporting relationships, or other reasons.” (PMBOK Guide p328)

The wording in this process is a little odd. That’s because in previous versions of the PMBOK Guide, this process was called “Acquire Project Team”, but now it has been expanded to include all resources. And it seems in some sentences the have just chanced “project team” to “project team and physical resources”. But the change makes sense because there are a lot of similarities between managing both types of resources.

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In some ways this can be the scariest part, because up to this point, everything has been on paper, but now it gets real. Until now a mistake was a mistake on paper, but now you could damage the project, and even your own career by failing at this point. The big tip for the exam is that you are working for a huge organization, managing an enormous project. Why does this matter? Because you have the time and money to include all processes. You have a department to carry out procurement, following your instructions. You will have a legal department to draw up and chase after contracts. You will have neatly organised libraries of lessons learned. The PMBOK guide was based on NASA and Department of Defence projects, and that is the size of project you need to keep in mind each time you answer a question. Unless it states very clearly otherwise. If you work in a small company, managing low-budget 3-week projects, never approach a PMP question thinking, “What I would do in that situation is...” Because once you think that, your subconscious mind is already selecting the wrong answer for you. It is important that the following factors are considered during the process of acquiring the project resources: And this is an example of the slightly odd wording I mentioned before. The PMBOK Guide 6th edition says: “The project manager or project team should effectively negotiate and influence others who are in a position to provide the required team and physical resources for the project.” Whereas the PMBOK 5th edition said: “The project manager or project management team should effectively negotiate and influence others who are in a position to provide the required human resources for the project.” PMI has simply changed “required human resources” to “required team and physical resources” On a project, I don’t think you will often have to influence people to hand over physical resources, and I suspect this sort of wording will change with the 7th edition, but for now, this is what it says, and that’s all that matters for the exam. > Failure to acquire the necessary resources for the project may affect project schedules, budgets, customer satisfaction, quality, and risks. And you can add to that, “and your career”. This is an area you really need to get right. I am sure you are familiar with the saying, “You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear”. Well, you can’t make a good work package out of poor resources. Insufficient resources or capabilities decrease the probability of success and, in a worst-case scenario, could result in project cancellation. Page 2 of 9

> If the team resources are not available due to constraints such as economic factors or assignment to other projects, the project manager or project team may be required to assign alternative resources, perhaps with different competencies or costs. What this means is, if all you can get is sow’s ears, then you have no choice but to try to make silk purses out of them. Alternative resources are allowed provided there is no violation of legal, regulatory, mandatory, or other specific criteria. These factors should be considered and accounted for in the planning stages of the project. The project manager or project management team will be required to document the impact of the unavailability of required resources in the project schedule, project budget, project risks, project quality, training plans, and other project management plans.

ACQUIRE RESOURCES: INPUTS Input #1 PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN Project management plan components: >Resource management plan. Because naturally it provides guidance on how to acquire resources for the project. > Procurement management plan. The procurement management plan has information regarding resources that will be acquired from outside the project. This includes information on how procurements will be integrated with other project work and stakeholders involved in procuring resources. In the exam, you will have a procurement department and you will have to interface with them. You will be drawing up the requirements, and be involved in bidder’s conferences, and head up selection panels, and this has somehow all got to work together. I joined a huge organisation and I was managing a project that required a number of toplevel software development resources hired for two years. The project also needed a lot of specialized computers and a server farm, and all sort of other things. I had worked with the team to specify all these things. Then the project Sponsor told me to procure them. I said “Do you mean I should ask the Procurement Department to procure them?” But he said, “No, they won’t understand these requirements, they will stuff it up, so I want you to do everything”. So, even in a huge organization, they don’t always do what the PMBOK Guide says they should > Cost baseline. The cost baseline provides the overall budget for the project activities.

PROJECT DOCUMENTS Project documents that can be considered as inputs for this process:

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>Project schedule. The project schedule shows the activities and their planned start and end dates to help determine when the resources need to be available and acquired. If you are not familiar with procurement, you can easily fall into the trap of thinking you can actually procure things as you need them, but many resources, especially people, can have significant lead times. In the Australian Public Service, for example, from the time identify the need for a person, to the time when that person is sitting at a desk, it typically 6 six weeks, and a slightly non-standard PC can take 4 weeks or longer. You need to be aware of all these lead times, so you begin the procurement process in time. > Resource calendars. I have mentioned these several times already. Resource calendars document the time periods that each resource needed for the project is available for the project. Creating a reliable schedule depends on having a good understanding of each resource’s availability and schedule constraints, including time zones, work hours, vacation time, local holidays, maintenance schedule and commitments to other projects. Resource calendars are progressively elaborated and updated throughout the project. Once created as an output of this process, they are used as needed whenever this process is repeated. > Resource requirements. Resource requirements identify which resources need to be acquired. > Stakeholder register. The stakeholder register may reveal stakeholders’ needs or expectations for specific resources to be used on the project that need to be considered in the Acquire Resources process. On a project in the UK I was already into the procurement process, when by accident I met “Albert”. Albert was in charge of stores. He tended to stay inside the store rooms, and I suspected he slept there at nights too. He was a key stakeholder of the project, but his reclusive nature lead to him being overlooked. Do you remember the fairy tale “Sleeping beauty?” After the baby was born and 7 good fairies were invited to the Christening, and each has a golden plate to eat from. But everyone had forgotten about the 8th fairy, who lived on her own. The first 6 fairies give the magical gifts to her, but then the 8th fairy arrives. They have no golden plates left, so they give her a china plate. The 8th fairy is furious and curses the baby that she will pick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and die. But the 7th fairy hasn’t used her wish yet. She isn’t powerful enough to remove the curse, but she uses her wish, to change it so that instead of dying, she will sleep for 100 years. So, back to my project. I had invited at least 7 good stakeholders. Everyone had forgotten Albert, but he found out, then turned up at a stakeholder meeting and cursed me. I pointed out that I was new to the company and I was relying on the others to identify key stakeholders. So he cursed them instead. Page 4 of 9

In case you have forgotten, we were talking about the Stakeholder register, and how the stakeholder register may reveal stakeholders’ needs or expectations for specific resources to be used on the project that need to be considered in the Acquire Resources process. If Albert had have been included, we would have known his expectations, which where that we didn’t need to procure a lot of the project resources. A previous project had been cancelled. The stakeholders I had spoken with didn’t realize that many of the resources that had been procured couldn’t be returned because that had been procured form a company that had gone bankrupt. If I had continued with procurement, we would have spent money and time unnecessarily, we just had to requisition then from the stores. And this ended up saving time and money. You when you create your Stakeholder Register, make sure you don’t forget Albert.

Input #3 ENTERPRISE ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS The enterprise environmental factors that can influence the Acquire Resources process: >Existing information on organizational resources including availability, competence levels, and prior experience for team resources and resource costs; >Marketplace conditions; >Organizational structure; and >Geographic locations. Input #4 ORGANIZATIONAL PROCESS ASSETS The organizational process assets that can influence the Acquire Resources process: > Policies and procedures for acquiring, allocating, and assigning resources to the project; and > Historical information and lessons learned repository.

ACQUIRE RESOURCES: TOOLS AND TECHNIQUES T&T #1 DECISION MAKING A decision-making techniques that can be used in the Acquire Resources process multicriteria decision analysis. Selection criteria are often used to select physical project resources, or the project team. Using a multicriteria decision analysis tool, criteria are developed and used to rate or score potential resources (for example, choosing between internal and external team resources). The criteria are weighted according to their relative importance and values can be changed for different types of resources. Some examples of selection criteria that can be used are: >Availability. Verify that the resource is available to work on the project within the time period needed.

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> Cost. Verify if the cost of adding the resource is within the prescribed budget. > Ability. Verify that the team member provides the capability needed by the project. Some selection criteria that are unique for team resources are: >Experience. Verify that the team member has the relevant experience that will contribute to the project success. > Knowledge. Consider if the team member has relevant knowledge of the customer, similar implemented projects, and nuances of the project environment. > Skills. Determine if the team member has the relevant skills to use a project tool. > Attitude. Determine if the team member has the ability to work with others as a cohesive team. > International factors. Consider team member location, time zone, and communication capabilities. T&T #2 INTERPERSONAL AND TEAM SKILLS An interpersonal and team skill that can be used for this process includes but is negotiation. Many projects require negotiation for required resources. The project management team may need to negotiate with: >Functional managers. You are borrowing the Line Managers’ staff members. Try to get the best you can for as long as you can. But the Functional Mangers will resist, because they need them too. If you are not winning, try to get other managers or the project Sponsor to help persuade them. > Other project management teams within the performing organization. Appropriately assign or share scarce or specialized resources. If you have desirable resources allocated to your team you may be able to do some “horse trading”. For example , if you have the capacity, offer your specialists to solve problems for another team, when your project isn’t too busy, and then you can call in the favour later. > External organizations and suppliers. Provide appropriate, scarce, specialized, qualified, certified, or other specific team or physical resources. Special consideration should be given to external negotiating policies, practices, processes, guidelines, legal, and other such criteria. The project management team’s ability to influence others plays an important role in negotiating resource allocation, as does the politics of the organizations involved. The PMBOK Guide suggests “convincing a functional manager about the high visibility of the project may influence him or her to assign the best resources to this project over competing ones.” I think what the really mean is, tell the functional manager that this is a high profile project, and if it fails, you will tell the CEO about Functional managers who could have helped, but didn’t.

T&T #3 PRE-ASSIGNMENT

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When physical or team resources for a project are determined in advance, they are considered pre-assigned. This situation can occur if the project is the result of specific resources being identified as part of a competitive proposal or if the project is dependent upon the expertise of particular persons. Pre-assignment might also include the team members who have already been assigned in Develop Project Charter Process or other processes before the initial Resource Management Plan has been completed. T&T #4 VIRTUAL TEAMS A few years ago I was running a project for a bank in Manila. Half of my programmers were in Perth, Western Australia the rest in Bangkok. My business analysts were in Manila, Hong Kong and London. Without communications technology, this project would not have been possible. With all the cities involved, except for London, we were in similar time zones. I remember once or twice phoning Bob, who was my business analyst in London, and a woman would answer the phone and shout, “Bob! Wake up BOB, it’s Australia” And then I would remember it was the middle of the night over there. This is what we call a virtual team. Virtual teams don’t have to be international, they can be in the same state or same city. In fact they could be in the same large building or university campus. The cost of such communication used to be absolutely prohibitive. But now all you need is a computer or even a smartphone, and you chat with people all over the world for a low cost. And this opens doors to small companies, especially in Information technology, or consultancy, and so on, because now they can manage projects in places that would otherwise be out of reach in term of travel cost and time. The virtual team model makes it possible to: > Form teams of people from the same organization who live in widespread geographic areas; > Add special expertise to a project team even though the expert is not in the same geographic area; > Incorporate employees who work from home offices; > Form teams of people who work different shifts, hours, or days; > Include people with mobility limitations or disabilities; > Move forward with projects that would have been held or cancelled due to travel expenses; and > Save the expense of offices and all physical equipment needed for employees. Communication planning becomes increasingly important in a virtual team environment. Additional time may be needed to set clear expectations, facilitate communications, develop protocols for resolving conflict, include people in decision making, understand cultural differences, and share credit in successes.

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ACQUIRE RESOURCES: OUTPUTS Output #1 PHYSICAL RESOURCE ASSIGNMENTS This records the material, equipment, supplies, locations, and other physical resources that will be used during the project.

Output #2 PROJECT TEAM ASSIGNMENTS This records the team members and their roles and responsibilities for the project. Documentation can include a project team directory and names inserted into the project management plan, such as the project organization charts and schedules. Output #3 RESOURCE CALENDARS A resource calendar identifies the working days, shifts, start and end of normal business hours, weekends, and public holidays when each specific resource is available. Information on which resources (such as team resource, equipment, and material) are potentially available during a planned activity period is used for estimating resource utilization. Resource calendars also specify when and for how long identified team and physical resources will be available during the project. This information may be at the activity or project level. This includes consideration of attributes such as resource experience and/or skill level, as well as various geographical locations. Output #4 CHANGE REQUESTS When changes occur as a result of carrying out the Acquire Resources process (for example, impacts to the schedule) or when recommended corrective or preventive actions impact any of the components of the project management plan or project documents, the project manager needs to submit a change request. Change requests are processed for review and disposition through the Perform Integrated Change Control process.

Output #5 PROJECT MANAGEMENT PLAN UPDATES Any change to the project management plan goes through the organization’s change control process via a change request. Components of the project management plan that may be updated as a result of carrying out this process: > Resource management plan. The resource management plan may be updated to reflect actual experience in acquiring resources for the project, including lessons learned in acquiring resources early in the project that will impact how resources are acquired later in the project.

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> Cost baseline. The cost baseline may change as a result of the acquisition of resources for the project.

Output #6 PROJECT DOCUMENTS UPDATES Project documents that may be updated as a result of carrying out this process: >Lessons learned register. The lessons learned register is updated with information on challenges encountered and how they could have been avoided as well as approaches that worked well for acquiring resources. > Project schedule. Changes to the project schedule may result from the availability of required resources. > Resource breakdown structure. Resources acquired during this process are recorded in the resource breakdown structure. > Resource requirements. Resource requirements documentation is updated to reflect resources acquired for the project. > Risk register. New risks identified during this process are recorded in the risk register and managed using the risk management processes. > Stakeholder register. The stakeholder register is updated with any new stakeholders and any new information about existing stakeholders that has been gained as a result of this process.

Output #7 ENTERPRISE ENVIRONM...