GRIP - IT RESOURCE MANAGER

SOFTWARE AND PROCESSES FOR
RESOURCE PLANNING AND RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

What is your challenge as you see it?

”As an IT Resource Manager the first thing I look for is the level of importance and urgency of the incoming IT demand, and determine if the demand can be quickly serviced by our Outsourcing Group. That depends on the specific IT skill set that is required to do the job. My challenges are that we want to engage the right kind of resources at the right time, for the right amount of time, for the right kind of job. As an IT Resource Manager, my challenges are that of load balancing and resource leveling against demand fluctuations. My other challenge is resource mix – how much reliance can we place on contracted resources versus our core in-house talent pool, against the criticality of the project.”

What solutions do you have today?

”Today we have a sophisticated resource spreadsheet that captures the headcount requirements of every new incoming IT demand. In another tab, we download the current resource allocations from our project planning software, and the level of accuracy is questionable. Yet another tab in the spreadsheet has the resource pool availability and the cost structure of resources. We use a home-grown skills inventory software to query the skill sets that we are looking for, identify the possible candidates, come back to our resource spreadsheet, and find the availability and rate of the individual. We then create a report of the matches and send the resource list to the project managers to pick and assign the resources they want. Once that is done, we make sure we update our resource spreadsheet master accordingly.”

What exactly do you need and why is it different?

You need a Resource management solution that is well-connected and takes feed in real-time from skills inventory system, and it should take feeds from the planning software, besides feed for non-project IT demands, so that all resources, not just project resources are allocated to the optimum level. You need a system that portrays resource utilization, and resource availability across cost centers and provides what-if scenarios for assigning the right resources at the right time to meet your IT demand, regardless of whether it is a project or a non-project item.

What does GRIP-IT Resource Manager do? (What are its features?)

GRIP-IT Resource Manager is Intranet web-based, easy-to-access and business-role based solution that gives a handle on enterprise-wide demand for resources versus current resource utilization levels and availability. GRIP-IT Resource Manager combines data from four directions: resource projections, resource availability, resource skill sets, and criticality of the need. GRIP-IT Resource manager optimizes the resource utilization and resource mix, using real-time, seamless connections to the Planning System and Finance system.

Part of the Bigger Picture…

GRIP-IT Resource Manager is part of the overarching GRIP management framework.