Overallocation of resources: the complete guide

What is over-allocation of resources and how can it be avoided?

Many project managers make the mistake of over-allocating their resources. Here’s why this can be a major problem, and what you can do to avoid it.

Over-allocation of resources is a dangerous practice occurring in many organizations today. When people hear the phrase “over-allocation of resources”, they may think it’s simply a matter of not having enough of something. But over-allocation goes much further: it also impacts communication, collaboration and overall responsibility within teams.

But how deep does over-allocation really go, and how can you tell if your organization is suffering from it? And above all, how do you manage over-allocation of resources?

Let’s start at the beginning.

Defining resource over-allocation

Defining over-allotment is fairly straightforward.

Over-allocation is a resource allocation error that occurs when an organization does not have sufficient resources to complete all assigned critical tasks within a given timeframe. This error may also be referred to as over-commitment or over-scheduling. The definition of over-allocation is, essentially, “too much work assigned” and under-allocation is the opposite – “not enough workload” for the resources available.

When over-allocation occurs, there are usually too few staff and too much work, leading to numerous resource risks and forcing many employees to work overtime or weekends to meet deadlines. Over-allocation can lead to disappointment in the workplace, poor performance and even budget overruns. More on this later.

Now, how can project managers tell if someone is over-allocated? Simple: just look at their schedule. If he’s overbooked and can’t get everything done in a reasonable time, then you know it’s time to reallocate some tasks or create more availability by hiring a new person on your team to help.

Rushing your resource planning frequently results in over-allocation.

The impact of the over-allotment

The impact of over-allotment can be felt throughout an organization.

Firstly, employees who are too busy are less likely to be happy or motivated. Thus, over-allocation can also lead toburnout and turnover, as employees leave for better opportunities.

Secondly, over-stretched teams can miss deadlines and targets, reducing revenues.

Thirdly, organizations with a long-hours culture often end up spending more on staff, as they have to hire more people than necessary to keep up with demand. In fact, it turns out that working long hours doesn’t necessarily get more done; on the contrary, it can actually lead to lower productivity and increased stress levels.

Fourthly, there is a risk of reduced quality and increased errorswhen projects are not allocated appropriately. This can have longer-term effects on an organization’s reputation and profitability; companies that fail to deliver high-quality products or services will find it difficult to remain competitive in today’s marketplace.

Too many resource assignments lead to a heightened state of anxiety for everyone involved in the project. They may feel that their working day doesn’t end until midnight; the resource initially feels enthusiastic about working on such a great project with great people… until they realize that they’ve been assigned to another high-priority initiative that has come up unexpectedly. This leads to increased risk and mistakes within the team, as they are unable to focus on one thing at a time, and poor communication can result in missed opportunities throughout the organization. In some cases, teams may even start thinking about leaving when faced with too much work as well as long hours.

How to manage resource over-allocation

So how do you deal with the over-allocation of resources in project management? Let’s take a closer look.

Prevention rather than cure

The best way to solve any over-allocation problem is to prevent it from happening in the first place. Here’s what you can do to spot problems before they catch up with you.

Create a visual resource calendar

To promote transparency, create a resource calendar. Resource calendars are visual representations of your employees’ schedules, resource availability and planned absences. It’s a great way for managers to see which resources are available at any given time, and how likely it is that each resource will be used on a certain project.

With Teambook, you get a planning board that gives a clear overview of your organization’s activities: who’s working on which project and when, who’s available and who’s on leave. You can zoom in from a daily to a multi-month view, and locate information in an instant thanks to clever visual cues.

Take into account non-billable time

When deciding how many people you need for your projects, remember that most staff members are not 100% billable all the time (nor should they be). They need time to plan meetings, take breaks, prepare reports and presentations, cover sick leave – we’re all human. So including these kinds of non-billable tasks in your forecasts will help you avoid over-allocating their talents.

Let’s face it: we all spend some part of our day doing things other than working on business projects, whether it’s answering e-mails from our family or dealing with administrative tasks like updating expense reports or organizing our calendar for next week’s meeting with the boss.

Taking this small amount of leeway into account as an imperative will make it easier to predict realistic resource use, and more flexible when you need to level out resources.

Precise forecasting

Accurate forecasting is crucial to avoid over-allocation of resources. If you don’t have a clear picture of how much work needs to be done and how long it will take to complete, you can’t really begin to allocate your resources optimally. You need precise estimates of how many resources you’ll need for each project or task, as well as an estimate of when you’ll need those resources over time.

In fact, predicting future resource needs and capacities is one of the keys to successful resource management.

If you don’t know how many resources you’re going to need or have available in the future, it’s hard to determine where there might be over-allocation problems – you can only make assumptions based on past performance, which may not work well if your business is growing or undergoing other changes.

Draw up a staffing plan

In short, a staffing plan is a document that describes the specific experts or resources your initiative needs, and how many of them can make your project work.

This plan should be able to answer questions such as: How many additional resources or employees will you need? What skills will they need? And when will they need these skills? Again, the best way to combat over-allocation of resources is to prevent it from happening in the first place – and having a staffing plan can help enormously.

You need to create staffing plans right from the start, so that they’re ready when projects get underway. It’s often useful to build a team before you start working on new initiatives. After all, staffing plans help you predict which team members are available for each upcoming project by mapping employee vacancies and other commitments in advance.

Automate resource planning

When you want to improve efficiency while avoiding burnout or loss, some advanced automation of resource planning can be put in place. Using resource management software will help you automate processes and remove human error from the equation. It will also enable you to easily increase or reduce resources when there is more or less demand for them in your various projects.

Teambook lets you allocate one or more resources with a simple click or drag & drop, then specify the appropriate project, whose residual time budget you can monitor in real time. The software lets you visualize who’s working on what and when, helping to prevent overloads and resource conflicts. Managers can adjust allocations in just a few clicks to ensure optimal workload balance.

Tempting as it may be to think otherwise, resource management is complex: many factors affect our availability at any given time; there are many tasks that need to be completed before our time can be fully utilized; the need for different types and levels of expertise will sometimes overlap; and so on.

This complexity makes it difficult to predict how much effort we could realistically devote to each task, or even how long it would take to complete each one. In many cases, we can’t properly estimate our own efforts beforehand – and even then, we’re likely to underestimate the time certain tasks take (especially if they require a certain level of creativity) simply by looking at them from the outside.

The result is a situation where people work with unrealistic expectations of what they can achieve in their allotted time.

The importance of capacity management with Teambook

Allocating resources and managing projects wisely means being realistic about what you can and can’t do or predict. That’s why having an automation tool can make such a big difference!

Teambook’s capacity management module is particularly valuable for growing organizations. It enables you to visualize and simulate the available capacities of your resources and/or those required to carry out your projects, over a 6-month to 2-year timeframe. Any discrepancies can then be viewed and reconciled, month by month.

Color-coding allows you to visualize situations of under- or over-capacity, so you can make decisions about future recruitment. Irrespective of team capacity, you can enter the capacity required for current and future projects.

Conclusion

Over-allocation of resources is a dangerous trap that can compromise the health of your organization, the satisfaction of your teams and the quality of your deliverables. By implementing preventative practices – resource calendars, accurate forecasting, realistic staffing plans and automation tools like Teambook – you can create a healthier, more productive work environment.

Teambook gives you all the tools you need to visualize, plan and optimize your resource allocation in just a few clicks. With its intuitive interface, dynamic planning functions and medium-term capacity management module, you have a complete solution for avoiding over-allocation and maximizing your teams’ performance.

Start a free 30-day trial of Teambook to discover how your resource management experience can improve with just a few clicks.