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CHAPTER 4.1

AN OVERVIEW OF THE DIFFERENT
ELEMENTS OF RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

If you were to ask 10 people to define resource management, you would likely get
at least a dozen different responses. Resource management (RM) would be
viewed differently when it operates as part of a project management system than as
part of a resource management system, an enterprise-wide management system, a
human resources system, or a project accounting system. It would, likewise, be
viewed differently according to role in the organization, and certainly according to
differing sets of needs. Nevertheless, any of these concepts for resource manage-
ment would likely consist of variations of the basic RM components that have ap-
peared in traditional commercial Critical Path Method (CPM) products.

In the traditional system, it is assumed that the resource scheduling is per-
formed on top of a critical path schedule of the tasks. In other words, the work is
identified and scheduled as if there were unlimited resources (see Chapter 3.1).
Then, by defining the available resource pool, and by assigning resources to the
tasks, the computer can determine a resource loading plan, and can manipulate
this plan to meet defined resource and/or time limits.

What follows is a description of the different elements of resource manage-
ment software systems.
Resource Database
This consists of knowing what your resources are. The data elements associated
with this list of resources will vary, and may include:

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