"This precept of Jean Bodin can be perfectly associated with the concept of "project staffing". Indeed, this is a process whose challenge consists, as much for ESNs as for any type of company, in associating the best resources to a given project. The challenge is also to meet the aspirations of the latter. Matching needs with skills and skills is a key mission that relies on optimal management of the company's talent. What are the main tools available to Managers and Resource Managers?
An information system dedicated to project staffing
A successful staffing is the one that manages to combine the client's needs with the skills and professional qualities, the availability and the affinities of the consultant... All this while respecting the timing and the budget of the project.
Having a resource management information system that centralizes all the data is therefore essential. Let's take the example of the process within a consulting firm:
- In thepreliminary draft, the system indeed allows to centralize and "match" in an automated way, the following data:
On the business side: the data to be integrated are those of current, future and pending projects. The tool also centralizes the details of the missions, their deadlines and the related budget data,
On the resources side: consultants' profiles and costs, their main professional skills and detailed schedules. Consultants can also access the database to express their career wishes and work preferences.
These different data are put into perspective in order to present the best matches and thus automate the training of the consultant/project tandem. They can also be shared and modified in real time, so that updates are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
- Duringthe project monitoring phase, Gantt charts and Scrum boards are very effective in planning and monitoring.
The horizontal bars displayed by the Gantt charts represent the different phases and progress of the project. At a glance, the chart allows collaborators to identify the tasks in progress or to be completed and the corresponding schedules. Scrum charts are effective for managing projects with less stringent deadlines and involving different consultants. The different phases of the project are displayed in a mutualized way for all the actors of the project. As the project progresses, each participant can move his or her markers on the board. Thus, all the people involved have a global vision of the project.
- In theproject closing phase, finally, a management and accounting tool allows to check the profitability of each mission and to ensure the billing.
All data related to each project and its staffing is historically recorded and stored along with individual evaluations and customer feedback.
Periodic staff meetings
An efficient information system does not exempt you from holding staffing meetings, the frequency of which depends on the "pipe"... Weekly, fortnightly or even monthly, depending on the volume of projects in progress or to come.
These meetings are a guideline for the project; they bring together all the stakeholders - sales people, project managers, consultants - and provide an update on current projects and those on stand-by. It can also be an opportunity to sound out the aspirations of the consultants and to make arbitrations on the assignment of missions.
The development of staffing requirement sheets
If they complement the IT tool, the needs sheets are part of the same centralized process. They are created at the start of an assignment and represent a complementary monitoring tool. The evolution or modification needs related to the projects are recorded on them, as well as the more basic staffing data: the required profiles, seniority, main professional skills , etc. These files can then be compared with the profiles of the firm's consultants, in addition to the automated search, so that nothing is left to chance. Human intervention is thus combined with that of the machine to coordinate needs, availability and skills ; and to ensure that the best combination is found...
The staffing of short projects is one of the dimensions of internal mobility about which we present you the benefits in our article"5 reasons to bet on internal mobility".
