19.1 Determining Resource Requirements and Availability
Key Takeaways
- Project resources include people, equipment, materials, facilities, funding, and information — not just staff.
- Resource requirements are derived from the work breakdown structure and the estimates for each activity, so vague scope produces unusable resource plans.
- Availability is about the right skill, competence, and certification at the right time — twenty generalists do not substitute for one certified specialist.
- Confirmed availability differs from nominal availability: staff carrying business-as-usual duties are not fully available to the project.
- Long-lead resources and scarce specialists must be identified early, because their availability constrains the schedule rather than following it.
Resource management on the APM PMQ
Resource management is how the project identifies, secures, assigns, and adjusts the people, equipment, materials, and facilities needed to deliver planned work. On the PMQ it is learning objective 21 — Resource management in Area D (Planning and managing deployment). This section covers determining resources required and their availability, the organisational breakdown structure (OBS), and how the OBS is used to create a responsibility assignment matrix (RACI).
Weak exam answers list job titles or say "hire more staff." Strong answers compare need versus availability, link roles to work packages through OBS and RACI, and show how unclear accountability creates delivery risk.
Exam frame: Resources make the schedule real. A network with perfect logic still fails if the people, plant, materials, or rooms do not exist when activities need them.
Resource types
Projects consume several categories of resource. PMQ answers should name the type relevant to the scenario and explain how each is planned.
| Resource type | What it includes | Typical planning concerns |
|---|---|---|
| People (human resources) | Project team, specialists, BAU subject-matter experts, contractors, temporary labour | Skills, competence, security clearance, availability calendars, cost rates, induction, fatigue |
| Equipment (plant and tools) | Machinery, test rigs, vehicles, specialised instruments, IT hardware | Capacity, booking lead times, maintenance windows, mobilisation, utilisation |
| Materials | Consumables, components, raw materials, free-issue client materials | Lead times, storage, wastage, quality certification, single-source risk |
| Facilities | Offices, labs, data centres, site compounds, training rooms, clean rooms | Booking windows, access control, shared use with BAU, health and safety limits |
Some organisations also treat budget/funding and information/data access as constrained resources. For LO21, prioritise the four physical and human categories above, then link money and data constraints when the scenario requires it.
People as more than headcount
People are not interchangeable units. Resource identification for people should capture:
- Role and skill (for example senior electrical designer, not only "engineer")
- Competence and certification (regulated work, software platforms, site induction)
- Full-time equivalent (FTE) or days needed by period
- Location and working pattern (remote, shift, part-time, secondment)
- Reporting line and authority (project vs functional matrix)
A plan that needs "two analysts for six weeks" is incomplete if only one analyst has the system access and data-protection training the work requires.
Determining resources required (need)
Resource need is the demand implied by the scope, WBS, schedule, quality approach, and risk responses. It answers: What do we need, how much, with what skills or specifications, and when?
How need is derived
- Start from WBS work packages / activities and product acceptance criteria.
- Estimate effort (person-days) and duration using suitable techniques.
- Identify non-labour inputs (equipment hours, material quantities, facility bookings) per activity.
- Aggregate demand by period (week, sprint, month) to see peaks.
- Add resources for management, assurance, quality, transition, and contingency responses — not only "build" tasks.
- Note dependencies on BAU (operations staff for testing, training, cutover).
| Planning input | Resource implication |
|---|---|
| Scope / PBS products | What skills and materials create each product |
| Schedule logic and dates | When demand occurs and whether work can run in parallel |
| Quality gates and tests | Specialists, labs, environments, rework capacity |
| Risk responses | Extra people, plant, or materials for mitigation/fallback |
| Procurement lead times | When materials and hired equipment must be ordered |
| Transition / training | BAU time and training facilities near go-live |
Example: A data migration work package may need a migration specialist (people), a staging environment (facilities/IT), extract scripts and licences (materials/tools), and overnight batch windows coordinated with operations — not only "developer days."
Determining availability (supply)
Availability is whether the required resource can be obtained for the periods needed. It answers: Who or what is free, bookable, or purchasable in time — and under what constraints?
Sources of availability information include functional managers, resource calendars, supplier capacity, hire fleets, warehouse stock, room booking systems, and framework agreements.
| Availability factor | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Calendar and holidays | Named individuals are not 100% available every working day |
| Competing projects / BAU | Same scarce experts appear on multiple plans |
| Skill match | Headcount exists but not the right competence |
| Lead time to recruit or hire | External fill may take weeks or months |
| Mobilisation and induction | Even assigned people are not productive on day one |
| Plant booking and maintenance | Equipment may be committed or offline |
| Storage and logistics | Materials available at the supplier but not on site |
| Financial authority | Budget approved late means people cannot start |
Need versus availability — the core comparison
| Situation | Meaning | Typical response |
|---|---|---|
| Need ≤ availability | Demand can be met as planned | Assign, book, confirm calendars |
| Need > availability (peak) | Overallocation in a period | Smooth, level, re-sequence, buy capacity, or change scope/dates |
| Need with wrong skill | Quantity OK, capability gap | Train, reassign, recruit, or outsource |
| Need with long lead | Future shortage already visible | Early procurement, advance booking, dual source |
| Availability uncertain | Promised resource not firm | Escalate, get named commitment, plan contingency |
Exam trap: Treating "the organisation has 200 staff" as availability for a specialist task. Availability is the right resource at the right time, not total headcount.
Scenario A — need without availability check
A project schedule shows three parallel user-acceptance test streams in the same week, each needing the same two clinical leads. Need is six clinical-lead-days in one week; availability is two people with heavy BAU loads (perhaps two days total). The plan is infeasible. The project manager must re-sequence tests, extend the window, add trained deputies, or reduce parallel scope — and update the integrated plan — not report "green" because the Gantt looks short.
A project plan needs a certified welding inspector for two weeks in month four. The organisation employs twenty project engineers, but none hold the welding-inspector certification, and the hire lead time is six weeks. Which statement best describes the situation?