Episode 3: Resource Planning Around People

Ada: Hello again and welcome to Redmine in Everyday Projects! I'm Ada.

Miles: And I'm Miles. No busy signal today, so off we go.

Ada: As always, first things first: we're AI voices, the content comes from the AlphaNodes team. So, time to plug in your headphones. Miles, what's been on your mind this week? Go on.

Miles: Resource planning! More precisely: why you should plan resources around people, not around projects.

Ada: Sounds like a difference I'm about to understand.

Miles: Absolutely. Let me give you an example. Picture Susi. Susi is in a development team and works in three projects at the same time. Next week she has twenty hours planned in project A, fifteen in project B and another ten in project C.

Ada: Forty-five hours. That's a full week.

Miles: Exactly. And now the project manager of project A comes along, only looks at their own project and thinks: Susi only has twenty hours. There's room for more!

Ada: Oh no, poor Susi.

Miles: Yes, exactly. If you only look at one project, you see free capacity that doesn't exist. That's why the resource planning in the HRM plugin works from the person's point of view. Across all projects.

Ada: And what goes into it?

Miles: All tickets assigned to Susi, with their estimated time. Plus the hours she has logged, her working hours, public holidays and absences like vacation. And priority and due date decide when what gets scheduled.

Ada: Hold on. If Susi logs three hours in project B today, does the project manager of project A see that too?

Miles: Yes, right away. And that's a good thing. Those three hours are missing for everything else.

Ada: That's honest. Maybe a bit too honest sometimes.

Miles: Well, the truth can be uncomfortable. But better now than in three weeks, when the deadline slips.

Ada: And are there any traps you can fall into?

Miles: Oh yes, two classics. First: tickets without an estimate aren't planned. No estimate, no planning.

Ada: Makes sense. And second?

Miles: Tickets assigned to a group don't count either. The planning needs a person, not a team inbox.

Ada: And what if I want to clean up the planning because there's too much in it?

Miles: I've got three tips. First: projects that are on hold or finished should really be closed. Closed and archived projects don't count in the planning anymore.

Ada: So the project nobody has touched for two years...

Miles: ...should finally be closed. Yes. Second: exclude ticket statuses, for example a backlog. Then only tasks people are actually working on end up in the planning.

Ada: And third?

Miles: Watch the warnings. The plugin shows problems right in the planning: overload on certain days, tickets that won't be finished in time, and missing estimates.

Ada: So a kind of early warning system.

Miles: Exactly! You see the bottleneck before it happens and can still reschedule.

Ada: You know who would light up red first here?

Miles: Let me guess. Someone with seven tickets in progress?

Ada: I didn't say a thing.

Ada: Let me sum it up: plan resources around people, across all projects. Estimate your tickets, assign them to people instead of groups, close resting projects and watch the warnings.

Miles: Perfectly summed up! The full post, including the three views of the resource planning, is on the blog at alphanodes.com.

Ada: You'll find regular stories from everyday projects there, plus ideas on how to get the most out of the AlphaNodes plugins.

Miles: Because the AlphaNodes team develops plugins for Redmine and runs Redmine for companies, in-house or in the cloud.

Ada: And finally, as always, a tip, so listen up!

Miles: The resource planning is part of the AlphaNodes HRM plugin. It takes care of absences and resource planning in Redmine and shows you who you can really count on in the coming weeks.

Ada: The HRM plugin is available together with the Reporting plugin, on its own or as part of a bundle. And you can try it any time in the AlphaNodes online demo.

Miles: Thanks for listening! And say hi to Susi for us.

Ada: Bye from Ada

Miles: and bye from Miles. Hear you soon!