Resource Calendar
What’s the purpose of a resource calendar?
A resource calendar’s main objective is to enhance a manager’s capacity to utilize the resources at their disposal. When assigning tasks, checking a resource calendar can reveal which resources are available. This can help a project stay on schedule and deliver a finished product that lives up to initial project expectations.
What is a resource calendar?
A resource calendar is a schedule that details the various resource obligations at various times. This frequently refers to human resources, with the calendar displaying assignments for each staff member or department and the time currently allotted to each. Scheduling for non-employee resources, such as a usage calendar for manufacturing equipment, may also be included in a resource calendar. Using this data, a manager may be able to identify underutilized resources to assign more work to them or overworked resources to ease their workload and boost performance quality.
Benefits of using a resource calendar
A well-planned resource calendar could be very advantageous for your business. Benefits calendars may provide include:
Meeting deadlines
Project deadlines are often a key responsibility for project managers. An effective tool for keeping your projects on schedule is a resource calendar. You can see when your plans call for the completion of various tasks by looking at the planned resource use on the projects. This can help you meet your final deadlines and ensure that any tasks that must be finished before moving on to other tasks are finished on time.
Raising morale
An effective tool for preserving employee satisfaction and maintaining high morale levels is a resource calendar. Your resource calendar displays the projects that each employee is engaged in as well as their schedule for the upcoming days and weeks. By using a resource calendar, you can prevent overloading one or more resources, which could help to lower their stress levels and increase their happiness at work.
Improved work quality
Effective task distribution can boost output levels in your company. You can work to increase overall production while reducing the need for staff members to rush their assignments and possibly produce subpar work by using resources sparingly and effectively. This may improve the overall standard of the work your team and nonhuman resources produce.
Organizational understanding
A resource calendar is a great way to explain your expectations to the people who work with you. Giving staff members access to their own resource calendar ensures that they are aware of their duties. Employee understanding of all project components can be improved by allowing them to view resource calendars for other resources. Because of their availability on their calendars, other employees may be best suited to help because they will be aware of any strict deadlines for their work.
Uses for a resource calendar in project management
A resource calendar can assist you as a project manager with the following tasks:
Managing resource schedules
The ability to manage schedules for all of your resources is the main advantage a resource calendar offers. A resource calendar enables quick access to one or more resources to view their current work schedule. You may be able to identify resource availability and resource overuse with the help of this visual representation.
Assigning tasks to people
You can use your resource calendar to assign new projects or tasks to resources who can finish them on time and to your desired standard when they enter the queue. You can find out which resources are available for the new tasks by looking for resources with available work time in the desired timeframe. You can distribute these responsibilities among the resources or try to move duties from a resource that isn’t available to a resource that is so that the previously unavailable resource can take on the new tasks.
Adjusting to unexpected events
Despite the fact that planning is a crucial step in the project management process, some projects may involve unforeseen circumstances. When dealing with these unplanned events, a resource calendar can be helpful. Giving yourself access to the current plans for your resources will give you more information to adjust them as necessary to take into account unforeseen circumstances.
How to create a resource calendar
If you think that having a resource calendar at your company will help you with your work, you can make one by using the steps below:
1. Choose your application
The resource calendar’s functionality can be significantly impacted by the program you use to create it. You might use an app that integrates with the software you use to carry out other tasks for the company to make better use of your resource calendar. It’s helpful to evaluate a list of your most likely requirements from a software package when choosing which application to use to determine which one provides the best fit for your business.
2. Enter resources
Each resource of your organization or department needs its own entry in your calendar, which you can create by scheduling them individually. This allows you to assign tasks to each resource individually. This may include both human resources and material resources.
3. Build your calendar
You might need to create the time slots of your calendar depending on the program you use to create your resource calendar. For instance, if you’re using a spreadsheet program to create your own resource calendar, you might list your resources in the first column, with the working hours that the calendar covers spread out over the following columns. You may be able to skip this step by using other programs, such as those created specifically for resource calendar generation, which may create a new calendar for you.
4. Add vacations and days off
Any time off granted to company resources is the first detail you can include in your resource calendar. This includes both the staff members’ personal vacation time and company-wide holidays. By doing this, you can avoid giving someone work when they’re not available.
5. Assign responsibilities
As your business or division receives work that needs to be done, assign it to one or more employees in their resource calendar. Allocating resources to a task involves more than just deciding which employee will handle it; it also considers the number of hours necessary to complete it. This enables you to schedule employees’ or physical resources’ workdays to ensure efficient time use without double booking.
6. Share access
Sharing a resource calendar with other staff members can increase the value it offers. When a worker accesses their own resource calendar, they can see what you anticipate of them on a particular day or time. Additionally, it might make it possible for workers or other management-level personnel to comprehend what other team members are working on every day and more effectively plan any necessary interactions with team members.
Project calendar vs. resource calendar
Despite the fact that a project calendar and a resource calendar can both be helpful to a project manager and have many similarities, it’s crucial to recognize their differences in order to use them both effectively. A project calendar concentrates on the timeline for the project’s plans. This includes various phases or components, when you anticipate completing them by, and when you anticipate working on them over the course of the project. Similar information is provided by a resource calendar, but it also shows which specific resources you assigned to each element and when.
FAQ
What is a resource calendar in project management?
A resource calendar is a schedule for organizing, controlling, and keeping track of resources, such as personnel and equipment. It provides project managers with a summary of the resources available, how they are being used, and when they are available.
What is a resource calendar in Outlook?
As I mentioned, a project calendar is a schedule of planned tasks and milestones that is used to track the progress of the project, whereas a resource calendar is a schedule of when team members are available to work on tasks and is used to track the availability of resources.
