In a recent 2-part article on Gantthead.com,

Need Workforce Metrics?! Part 1 and Part 2

Joe Wynne describes a problem we see often in companies who are transitioning to a project-centric approach:

With all the talk about metrics, you’d think there would be something that any project manager could use to gauge the value of the project workforce. Workforce metrics, at their current level of sophistication, do not really help the project manager. They either measure the entire business unit workforce (as in return on talent or return on workforce), or they focus on the individual as in ratings on a periodic performance evaluation. Fat lot of good that does you.

Indeed, the project workforce, not the permanent, enterprise workforce, is the concern of a project manager. Wynne goes on to explain how to maximize that project workforce–based on a characteristic he calls Return to Project Manager (RPM), a nice play on the familiar term Return on Investment (ROI) that gets so overused.

RPM is increased when you raise the skill level, and lower the cost, of your project workforce. Intelligent outsourcing, offshoring, and overall project planning are key to maximizing RPM, Wynne says.

I believe the bottom line here is understanding skills: knowing which ones you have, which ones you don’t, and where to get the skills you need from motivated, high-performing people at the best price. But gaining that understanding of skills can’t begin when it’s time to plan the project–it has to be an ongoing process that begins well in advance.

Wynne’s prescription for maximizing RPM is comprehensive and has a great deal of detail that should be highly useful to PMs who are assembling project workforces. However, some of his steps would be greatly simplified if–and perhaps even require that–the planner already has the tools in place that can inventory the workforce and individuals’ skills, rates, and availability.

With the right workforce tools, it becomes easy and cost effective to perform much of the planning that Wynne describes–planning that might otherwise add significant front-end costs to a project’s budget and timeline.