Leadership: Mobilizing Resources

Comment: This is the sixth post of the Leadership Process series. I began this series because I saw a lack of rigor and discipline to leadership. The purpose of these posts is to look at a process model used by leaders. 

The term "mobilizing resources" originated from governmental language when seeking reforms or conducting international aide operations. Nonetheless, mobilizing resources is classic project management. This phase of the leadership process model is where project managers, PMs, make their mark. PMs may be involved in the previous steps to a lesser extent if involved at all. Mobilizing resources is the fundamental activitiy of being a PM.

Mobilizing Resources Background

The problem of effecting a vision, design, or a general effort has been a challenge historically. Visions, designs, and efforts of various sorts when implemented become projects. The discipline for effecting projects originates from operations management and to some extent engineering specifically industrial engineering.  Within these disciplines project management has emerged with the methodologies for mobilizing resources; manpower, money, machinery, and methods. Projects come in many types and styles having associated tooling, tactics, techniques, and practices.

Projects fall into two general categories; continuous and discrete. Continuous projects come in two forms; continuous improvement or Agile. Conitnuous improvements often utilize a Spiral Waterall model. These projects may have discrete points along the way but the project is ongoing and does not fully complete. Instead, there are versions that demark major waypoints. Discrete projects are typically linear having a start and end date upon which the project fully terminates. A special case of projects stems from complexity which can be nonlinear but always has a high degree of uncertainty and dynamic relationships between participants. Often complex projects occur as progressive elaboration events.

Project Managers must assess and know the character of the project type before beginning to organize the project details. For many project managers, the practice of program management is not a foreign concept. Programs lay down the framework for the projects to operate within giving structure, form, and policies for conducting the project(s).

Many organizations offer methodologies for managing projects. The Project Management Institute, PMI, is one such organization which issues its Project Management Body of Knowledge, the PMBOK.

Mobilizing Resources

Once leadership has created the vision, built a constituency, and established the capabilities and capacities necessary to move the project forward, the PM begins by initiating the project.  There are many activities and two of the key activities is developing the Work Breakdown Structure, WBS, and the Organizational Breakdown Structure, OBS. The WBS work packages maps to the OBS or who will execute the work packages. Typically, the PM will look for shortfalls in capacity and capabilities. If leadership was on spot desiging the organization then there should be no shortfalls. Nonentheless, the PM occassionally must seek special skills or augement capacity from time-to-time. For example, crashing a project requires additional resources. Resourcing capability for specific work packages is not uncommon. The capabilities resourced are often journeymen or tradecraft skills such as plumbers, electricians, and IT support of various sorts. Professional services (Engineering, Legal, Accounting, etc...) are often contracted as well.

However, resources are not uniquely labor. Money, methods, and machinery are also resources that demand the PM's attention. Money often gets the most attention and tracked in many cases through Earb Value Management, EVM. Methods and machinery are also part of the equation as capabilities and capacity to perfortm work. Methods are most often skills, techniques, and practices. For example, a method could be a means of interstitially coating something. There are numerous methods from electro-plating to Ionic bonding to electro-static paint to perform such outcomes.  Machinery or tooling is another resource. If a process calls for a specific method then the proper tooling or machinery needs to be on hand to perform the work. Sometimes in a project, job shops or shop floors are leased to bring capabilities into the project.

Mobilizing resources often means overcoming political, organizational, and human obstacles. This is often called personality management which is an art more than a science. The science is simple in which humans generally fall into behavioral groups that have collective personalities. The art is knowing how to apply the science and gain productive outcomes from fickle people.

Conclusion

Mobilizing resources is project management. PMs are concerned with manpower, money, machinery, and methods in additional to the project objectives; scope, cost, quality, and schedules. Mobilizing resources is where the leaders vision and strategy are put to task. A key performance indicator is to ask the question, "Did what was worked serve the organization and strategy?"  The concept of measurable organizational value, MOV, serves to answer this question. MOV will be part of the posts on "Assessing Results" and "Plan for Updates".