Learning path: Manage skills, people and capacity

Summary: Set up skills and people so that LYNX-X plans with the capacity you really have, and see where projects ask more of a skill than your people can give. 5 articles to start with, about 17 minutes of reading, for resource managers.

In LYNX-X, this is a Start path for resource managers (practitioner). Get going: 5 steps, about 17 minutes of reading, for your first session. Go further when you need it.

 

You will be able to

• Explain how skills, resources and teams relate, and how a property narrows a skill down
• Give people their skills and keep them up to date
• Decide what a person's 100 % means for your organisation
• Record holidays and other absences
• Read the load on each skill across all your projects

When you finish: skills, people and absences set up correctly, and you can read the load across projects.

 

The journey

4 parts, in order. Get going covers the first session; Go further waits until your work asks for it.

1. Understand the model (step 1, about 3 minutes): how skills, resources and teams fit together, before you change anything.
2. Set up people and their availability (steps 2 to 4, about 11 minutes): give people their skills, decide what their 100 % means and record their absences.
3. Read the load (step 5, about 3 minutes): see the demand on each skill across all your projects.
4. Fine-tune (Go further): skill types, part-time units, calendars and resource pools, when your organisation needs them.

 

Is this path for you?

Yes, if this sounds like you: “I am responsible for people and skills across projects and need capacity to match the work.”

Not quite? LYNX-X: start here sets out every path, and every topic if you would rather go straight to one.

 

Before you start

• Your space has its working time, and the skills and people your projects plan with, set up.
• You know which skills and people you look after.

 

Get going

Understand the model

Step 1 · Understanding the skill, resource and team model, about 3 minutes of reading

What to expect: You learn how skills and resources relate, many to many, and how properties narrow a skill down to the competency a task needs.

Set up people and their availability

Step 2 · Configuring skills and resources, about 2 minutes of reading

What to expect: You find the skills and resources already in your space, and add, edit or remove a skill on a resource.

Step 3 · What 100 % means: choosing how to model availability, about 7 minutes of reading

What to expect: You compare the three settings that can each stand for 100 % and choose the way of modelling availability that fits how your team plans.

Step 4 · Setting a resource's non-availability period, about 2 minutes of reading

What to expect: You record a holiday or other absence for one resource, separately from their calendar.

Read the load

Step 5 · Reading multi-project resource load, about 3 minutes of reading

What to expect: You read the average load per skill across projects in Project Portfolio, and unfold it to the resources and absences behind it.

 

Go further

Step 6 · Working with unit percentages, about 3 minutes of reading

What to expect: You learn what units are, the share of an assignment's hours a resource contributes, and how they turn days into an amount of work.

Step 7 · Which calendar a task follows, about 5 minutes of reading

What to expect: You learn that a task's working time comes from the calendar of whoever does the work, and what the project's calendar still decides.

Step 8 · Pre-selecting a resource pool for a project, about 3 minutes of reading

What to expect: You narrow a project to a maximum number of resources, or a named selection, before assignments are made.

 

Where next

Back to LYNX-X: start here for the other paths, or open the LYNX-X section for the work in front of you.