How to Improve Time to Market w Existing Resources

©2013 Planview, Inc.

HOW TO IMPROVE TIME TO MARKET WITH EXISTING RESOURCESThe Product Development View of the Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study

Commissioned by Planview®

conducted byAppleseed Partners and OpenSky Research

RESEARCH REPORT

2©2013 Planview, Inc.

HOW TO IMPROVE TIME TO MARKET WITH EXISTING RESOURCES

Executive Summary

This report reveals the state of resource management and capacity planning in product development organizations. It shows that within these groups, there is considerable room for growth – and many of them are very aware of the need, as well of the potential benefits. What stymies product development organizations is the how and the where: how to do it, where to start.

More than 280 globally-based product development executives participated in the benchmark study1, sharing their top pain points, business risks, pain causes, software impacts, and process improvements relative to resource management and capacity planning.

These executives were aware of what was at risk and spoke to their goals of improving time to market, reducing the total cost of development, and improving their ability to effectively prioritize winning ideas. They understood that not addressing resource management issues leads directly to problems, including a lack of visibility into demand and capacity resulting in ongoing chaos among their teams, missing market windows, and the inability to optimize both people and financial investments.

It should not be construed, however, that the groups participating were homogeneous. Their problems varied, as indicated by their position on the Resource Management and Capacity Planning Maturity Spectrum (Figure 1). This spectrum allowed participants to identify their groups’ maturity on a five-tier grading system from 1-Basic (having very limited understanding of resources, capacity, and demand) to 5-Optimized (having up-to-date data). Reference section IX. Maturity Matrix for complete details.

Roughly two-thirds of product organizations identified as low- to mid-level maturity; only a third labeled their organizations with a higher state of maturity, at which point they break through to a certain level of management control and optimization, and thus greater visibility.

Product development organizations face specific challenges when it comes to resource management and capacity planning. What’s at stake? In short, time to market targets and revenue. If product teams choose to embrace the status quo, they will not reap the benefits of change – optimized resources, stronger company bottom lines, better market share and brand awareness equity.

Key findings of this Product Development View of the Resource Management and Capacity Planning Study include:

• Pain: Lacking visibility into both capacity and incoming demand and the impact of constant change.

• Business risk: Lost revenue and market share due to missed market windows, remaining in crisis mode, and resources wasted on the wrong projects and products.

• Opportunity: Improve processes to increase resource management and capacity planning maturity; this can support goals such as reducing total cost of development, filling the pipeline with profitable products, and speeding time to market.

This research report is an extension of the Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study 2013, available at Planview.com/RMCPBenchmarkStudy. Containing product development specific charts and analysis not presented in the original benchmark report, this focused view speaks explicitly to product development organizations.

Resource Management and Capacity Planning Maturity Spectrum

Figure 1. Maturity Spectrum

1 Carlson, M. (2013). Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study.

http://www.planview.com/rmcpbenchmarkstudy/

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Key Findings

The report shows several common threads of challenges such as constant change, inaccurate project estimation, and the inability to complete projects on time. Slightly more organizations identified as more mature when it came to resource management than capacity planning (38% vs. 31%); there is significant opportunity for growth in the latter, which could help organizations prioritize more effectively and alleviate many of their pains (Figures 2 and 3).

Improvements in resource management and capacity planning come down to three things:

• Improved, consistently used processes

• Commitment, follow-through, and executive support

• The right enterprise software for the job

Addressing these areas allows organizations to better align and connect products with their strategy; enables management to run critical what-if scenarios in the face of constant change; and ensures that scarce resources are leveraged wisely for the most competitive offerings and high value returns.

The Six Characteristics of Mature Organizations

As determined in the Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study 2013, those organizations that excel at resource management and capacity planning performance tend to:

1. Have insight into what people are working on, can identify bottlenecks, and run scenarios on-demand, to adapt to change

2. Meld top-down with bottom-up approaches to capacity planning and resource management

3. Have a dedicated function to lead resource management and capacity planning activities

4. Agree on these top three best practices: prioritization; what-if analysis; executive buy-in

5. Estimate projects well and have good supporting processes in place

6. Use Product Portfolio Management (PPM) software to optimize their resources

Resource Management Maturity Levels for Product Development

Figure 3: Resource Management Maturity Levels

Capacity Planning Maturity Levels for Product Development

Figure 2: Capacity Planning Maturity Levels

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Summary

Product organizations face unique pressures, both from the outside and within. One of those internal pressures comes from the nonconformist view that process is the enemy of creativity and innovation, rather than its support structure.

For those surveyed, no matter how mature their resource management and capacity planning performance, all said that their processes needed bolstering. Improving processes is in every product organizations’ best interest: it derisks the entire portfolio, helps drive down costs, builds efficiencies into projects, encourages innovation by enabling the prioritization of products and resources in line with strategy, and creates an environment that gets products to market faster.

When the external world continues to make its presence known – more, now, better, faster – not hitting market windows is not an option, nor is not delivering quality products or hiring more resources to make it all happen. Something has to give.

External pressures are going to continue to build. Resources are going to continue to be finite and scarce. Product groups must find better ways of dealing with these pressures, and a foundation based on consistent, enforced process is an excellent place to start. Embrace change: allow process and software to support the team and the company goals.

Key Report Statistics

Of those organizations surveyed:

• More than 50% of lower maturity organizations perceive their greatest business risk is delayed time to market resulting in losses of revenue, savings, user/customer satisfaction, and/or market share; this reduces by more than 10% for higher maturity organizations

• Nearly 70% of all organizations want streamlined and accurate resource and forecasting and planning to be the main result of improving resource management and capacity planning processes and using enterprise software

• The top best practices recommended by higher maturity organizations are better prioritization and performing what-if analysis on capacity plans to determine the best use of resources and for risk mitigation

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Table of Contents

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

I. Product Development Maturity: Resource Management vs. Capacity Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

II. Organizational Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

A. Pain Points Before and After Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

B. Pain Causes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

C. Pain Point Shifts by Maturity Level . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

III. Expected Business Benefits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

IV. Business Risks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

V. Best Practices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

VI. Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

A. What Are Your Priorities? Get Your Process House In Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

B. Change the Future with Historical Actuals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

C. Look at the Proof and Make the Business Investment in the Right Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

VII. Next Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

VIII. About the Product Development View of the Resource Management Capacity Planning Study . 13

A. About the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

B. Use of the Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

C. Study Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

D. Study Participants and Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

IX. The Maturity Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

X. About the Chief Researcher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

XI. About Planview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

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I. Product Development Maturity: Resource Management vs. Capacity Planning

In the benchmark study, participants were asked to identify their organizations’ maturity levels against a specially designed, objective matrix that allowed for the benchmarking of resource management and capacity planning performance. Please reference Section IX of this report to review this maturity spectrum in depth.

While maturity levels in both capacity planning and resource management broke down fairly evenly into thirds, overall organizations indicated a slightly higher maturity level in terms of resource management (Figure 2 and 3).

The higher resource management maturity level is unsurprising. In product development organizations, there is essential ongoing or in-flight tactical assignment of personnel to planned and unscheduled activities. The nature of capacity planning is more proactive and forward-looking. Capacity planning addresses the need to take human and non-human (e.g., production lines, patient beds) resource constraints into account in the sequencing and prioritization of products and projects during both the annual planning process and for gate approvals. Longer range capacity planning ensures the company has the facility to take on new ideas at the right time.

Given the aforementioned continual interaction with resource management activity, it is surprising to note that nearly one third of survey respondents say that they are still at a Level 1-Basic or Level 2-Ad-Hoc stage of maturity in this area. Lower maturity here is characterized as chaotic, with virtually no visibility into demand or insight into what their resources are working on. The mid-tier Level 3-Limited maturity organizations gain visibility, but with that new insight, they ironically uncover or become more aware of a host of challenges to address for optimizing the productivity of their resources.

Encouragingly, a third of organizations are breaking through to higher maturity. Level 4-Managed and Level 5-Optimized environments benefit from greater control and true productivity optimization (but even these organizations said there’s room for improvement).

When asked to identify best practices to help enable a breakthrough to higher maturity levels, these more mature product development organizations pointed to several that, for the more complex organization, are challenging if not impossible to achieve without a strong foundation of software, process, and executive support. With this foundation, however, mid- or lower-level maturity organizations can begin to build on the best practices to achieve a more complete picture of capacity and demand.

Resource Management Maturity Levels for Product Development

Figure 3: Resource Management Maturity Levels

Capacity Planning Maturity Levels for Product Development

Figure 2: Capacity Planning Maturity Levels

“We’re good on the demand side but not the capacity side. Right now our project managers can’t see the availability, skill set, or number of weeks of effort; and the assumptions are not right. If the resource managers are not using the system to give the product managers visibility, even the best

project plan can’t be properly resourced.” Senior Manager PMO, Large Insurance Company

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II. Organizational Plan

A. Pain Points Before and After Software

Before implementing enterprise software for resource management and capacity planning, the top two pains points are clear: lack of visibility into capacity, followed swiftly by its twin, poor insight into demand. Equally apparent is the cascade of pain that follows from those two problems (Figure 4).

Once supporting enterprise software is properly implemented, an interesting picture takes shape. As might be expected, several areas show significant improvement. Capacity and demand visibility are enhanced, as is reporting on demand, and the 6% improvement of resources completing projects on time can make a substantial difference in margins.

How then to explain increased pains, post-implementation of software, in items such as constant change affecting assignments, ineffective demand prioritization, and challenges managing shared resources across projects (which affects a reported 80% of organizations surveyed)? While a few of the pain points appear to be more problematic after software adoption, there are a few factors to consider:

• As referenced earlier in the Executive Summary of this report, while implementation of enterprise software is a key characteristic of mature companies, as indicated by the best practices they recommend, it’s not a silver bullet. Without the supporting processes and management mandate to ensure its consistent use by product, project, and resource managers, the software will not succeed in its goals.

• It is often a case of “ignorance is bliss.” When software and process are leveraged effectively, an organization’s eyes are opened: the more it can see into incoming demand and the true state of its capacity, the more opportunities for improvement are revealed.

• All enterprise software is not created equal. Are product organizations using the right software for the needs of resource management and capacity planning? Refer to section VI. Recommendations for more on this topic.

“We are transitioning from having our own resources to sharing pooled resources. Our challenge is that some of the organization is doing resource management and capacity well, while other parts of the organization are just getting started. In a shared resource arrangement, more of the organization needs to be on board. Our biggest risk of not addressing resource management and capacity planning is time

to market for our seasonal products.” Project Management Director, Large Consumer Products Company

Pain Points Before and After Enterprise Software for Product Development

Figure 4. Pain Points Before and After Enterprise Software

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B. Pain Causes

Process is the name of the game – and across the board, organizations appear to believe it’s the solution.

For the more mature organizations, the top causes of pain points are challenges estimating for projects and lack of process maturity, closely followed by ineffective use of historical data (Figure 5).

These causes are related. When process matures and is repeatable, and experiences, best practices, and lessons learned are stored in a centralized, accessible system, managers can acquire information from historical data and improve high-level and detailed project estimates and deliver them more quickly and painlessly. Unfortunately for most, this information is siloed, residing in the heads of product and development managers or in desktop files. This is often the result of resources being so overloaded that they’re rushing to the next project, a lack of process adoption, or reliance on information that is non-standard without the right technology to store, search, and apply it. A minimally invasive process that is enforced and enabled across the organization can make a significant difference to improve vitally important data for resource and project estimation.

Level 3-Limited maturity organizations, with their newfound visibility, have pinpointed some specific top issues to address – they also want to start with process, and then tackle project-estimating issues. Just like the most mature, they will greatly benefit from the efficiencies they gain, as well as project derisking.

Lower-level maturity organizations, those in the Level 1 and Level 2 segments, have identified a good place to start addressing their problems: process and executive buy-in (their top pain causes). Best practices indicate that it is a powerful first step to leverage executive mandate to ensure that processes be improved and adopted across the enterprise to begin to resolve resource management and capacity planning issues.

“Our recommendation is to understand the body of work and do time tracking on the work. To do estimates, you need a baseline. Try to do it without a tool and then show others how a tool can be beneficial. Then you need to figure out how to capture your demand. It doesn’t have to

be perfect, just start somewhere.” Program Manager, Consumer Goods Product Company

Product Development - Pain Causes by Maturity Level

Figure 5: Pain Causes by Maturity Level

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C. Pain Point Shifts by Maturity Level

The most mature product development organizations (Level 4-Managed and Level 5-Optimized) place ineffective demand prioritization and constant change and its impact atop their list of top pains (Figure 6). Pains one and two are separated by two small percentage points. From there, it is quite a jump to the next smaller pain, that of underutilizing resources. Not to minimize this third concern, but with a difference of 15% between pains two and three, it is clear that these organizations have identified where it hurts – and on what they need to focus.

Level 3-Limited organizations have identified the same pains as their higher-level brethren, although their emphasis on them is reversed. And the difference doesn’t end there. For these teams, the pain of constant change that affects assignments and availability comes in at 49%, in and of itself a whopper, and a rather tremendous 19% ahead of its next closest competitor in the race for biggest pain (Figure 6). What to make of this lead, and why do nearly 50% of these organizations identify so fiercely with this challenge? One explanation is that they have some awareness of the demand in the product pipeline, understand to a fairly significant extent where their commitments already lie, and can essentially see where their resources are already allocated. The constant change of their environments becomes all the more unreasonable as they comprehend just how much opportunity is falling by the wayside, and how much room for improvement is still open to them.

Those at maturity levels 1 and 2 are most challenged by an inability to see into their companies’ strategic goals, making prioritization challenging (Figure 6). Given that they operate in a highly chaotic, tactical state, this is unsurprising – as is their second-highest pain, which echoes from the other two groups, that of constant change and its impact. This group, however, sees its pains as more evenly distributed; all pains also bear higher percentage points across the board. For these organizations, everything hurts.

“Our biggest risk is having different versions of the truth and schedule.” Senior Project Manager, Semiconductor Products Company

Product Development Top Five Pain Points (after software) by Maturity Level

Figure 6. Top 5 Pain Points (after software) by Maturity Level

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III. Expected Business Benefits

Study participants were asked what business benefits they believed their organizations would recognize by addressing resource management and capacity planning with improved processes and the use of enterprise software. All participants, regardless of their organization’s maturity level, shared two key expectations:

1. Streamlined and accurate resource forecasting and planning

2. Improved project success and time to market

Depending on their maturity level, they also wanted to improve visibility into what resources are working on; optimize the productivity of resources; or improve visibility into capacity respectively as they move up the matrix (Figure 7).

IV. Business Risks

Connecting the dots between business risks and the impact they have is key for organizations looking to improve resource management and capacity planning performance. What is the bottom line?

Study participants indicated that by leveraging software and process correctly, they believed they would decrease the business risks of time to market, decision-making, alignment of resources, and reporting (Figure 8).

Participants further felt that risk would decline by significant percentages (8–10%) in each of these key areas. What would it mean to reduce risk by 10% in time to market? What is the impact of inaction?

What are the expected Business Benefits of addressing Resource Management and Capacity Planning with an improved process and

enterprise software? (select 3)

Figure 7. Expected Business Benefits with Improved Process and Enterprise Software

What are the greatest Business Risks of not addressing Resource Management and Capacity Planning with an improved process and the use of enterpise

software? (select all that apply)

Figure 8. Business Risks with no Improved Process and Enterprise Software

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V. Best Practices

As alluded to earlier, when asked the top best practices for improving resource management and capacity planning, the most mature organizations recommended:

• Better prioritization

• Performing what-if analysis on capacity plans to determine the best use of resources and for risk mitigation

• Establishing and communicating processes

Organizations were also asked what type of approach they use for resource management and capacity planning: 1) bottom-up resource management on projects; 2) top-down capacity or full time equivalent (FTE) planning; or 3) a combination of the two. The most mature companies indicated they used a combined approach that gave everyone in the organization a shared responsibility for resource management and capacity planning, making this a strongly recommended best practice.

The implementation of these practices could go a long way toward addressing the pain points identified by respondents. However, attempting to implement these practices without the right software, processes, and management support, especially in a resource-strapped and/or project-heavy environment can be a thankless challenge that ends poorly or simply subsides. The organization seeking to use best practices to migrate up the maturity model matrix might well consider if it is not worth the time and money to put a stronger foundation in place to achieve the breakthrough it seeks.

VI. Recommendations

A. What Are Your Priorities? Get Your Process House In Order

As has been seen throughout this report, organizations at all levels of maturity can benefit from improving their resource management and capacity planning process performance.

Organizations at maturity levels 1–3 have a tremendous opportunity to move up the maturity scale when it comes to capacity planning in support of proper prioritization. It’s important to consider the capacity plan in context with demand. Everything is a top priority if it’s assumed there are enough resources to handle the work. Addressing capacity planning has a tremendous payoff, both for project prioritization and for good resource utilization practices.

Those at maturity levels 4 and 5 still struggle with pain points such as an ineffective demand prioritization and governance process. To focus on continuous improvement and mature standard processes, use this report to benchmark where your product development team lies, and put a measureable, specific plan in place for both resource management (to address in-flight challenges) and capacity planning. This will help the executive team to prioritize, help product development to focus efforts on the most impactful products, and grow planning from a reactive 3–6 months to a proactive 1–2 years out. Think forward – this is where real strategic competitive differentiation, time to market improvements, and margin maximization take place.

B. Change the Future with Historical Actuals

Best practice dictates that your product portfolio should be a balance between breakthrough innovation and incremental innovation. Unfortunately, for many companies, line extension and product updates take as long as those breakthroughs. Luckily there are ample opportunities to deliver these small product changes to market faster, using less money and less people, and direct more resources toward game changers – and this is where leveraging historical actuals to estimate for the future can come to the rescue. How? Implement the capability to track historical actuals in terms of money, duration, and effort, and have a place to store it for future reference (that requires process and the right software). If it means more time reporting, then do it. When a project ends, ensure the data is correct and captured. Hold an honest post mortem. All these moments of data capture, small and large, turn into an incredible opportunity for cost savings and time to market improvement down the road, along with enabling future, accurate, and efficient project and resource estimation and better capacity planning. There is a reason many of the key pain causes – such as challenges estimating for projects; lack of process maturity; ineffective use of historical data – resonated across maturity levels. Not enough people take the time to capture how long things really take and what resources were really required because they are already on to the next thing. Start capturing the data and stop feeling the pain.

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C. Look at the Proof and Make the Business Investment in the Right Software

In this report, organizations that invested in enterprise software are 27% better off in their visibility into capacity and 22% better off in visibility into demand. And the inability of resources to consistently complete products on time gets better by 6%, and that’s significant. Enterprise software is providing great dividends but there are still great prospects for improvement and a move up the maturity ladder to realize even greater business gains.

Think about software from two perspectives:

1. Is it the right software? According to the study, many organizations are reporting that they use different types of enterprise software including Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) or Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and expect it to address resource management and capacity planning. Not so. While Product Portfolio Management (PPM) software can relieve the pain points identified in the survey, PLM and ERP are not going to effectively prioritize demand and improve the governance process; will not help to address the lack of visibility into a company’s strategic goals; nor will they help with capacity or demand. Not all enterprise software is designed to address the same problems.

2. Is it being used the right way? Many survey respondents check the box (“Yes, we have a PPM solution”) but they don’t use the full breadth of the software they purchased. PPM is not just about the application itself; it’s also about fostering the supporting processes. Organizations leveraging enterprise software to improve resource management and capacity planning performance should take the time to develop a big picture plan; maintain the stamina needed to execute; follow through; and ensure that leadership support is in place. They should not underestimate how much a strong, pragmatic leader is needed to see the plan through end-to-end so that the company can realize the business benefits that come from enterprise PPM software including reducing time to market, increasing revenue, and launching differentiated products.

VII. Next Steps

If you would like to learn more about more improving resource management and capacity planning, take advantage of the following resources:

• Download the whitepaper Ten Proven Military Strategies for Better Resource Planning: Avoiding Custer’s Last Stand. Nowhere is there a richer source of strategies and tactics for how to apply limited human resources than in military history. With that in mind, we invite you to read this whitepaper from top-selling author Jerry Manas, which explores 10 timeless military strategies – tried and tested over thousands of years – that can be effectively applied toward modern day resource planning.

Download the paper at Planview.com/TenProvenMilitaryStrategies.

• View this On-Demand Webcast: How Technology-Enabled Visibility Lets You Prioritize Products and Optimize Resources to discover how you can deliver the visibility needed to make effective, informed, and timely decisions with confidence regarding your product pipeline. Through the use of PPM technology, organizations can optimize their limited people and financial resources to achieve their product delivery objectives. Featuring Frost & Sullivan, Isabel SA, and Planview.

Access the webcast on demand at Planview.com/PrioritizeProductsandOptimizeResourcesWebcast.

• Read Issue in Focus: Meeting Fixed Product Launch Windows, Managing Portfolios When Time to Market is Non-Negotiable. In this research report, Jim Brown, president of Tech-Clarity, addresses the critical nature of hitting launch windows and provides insight from successful companies as well as tips for improving the odds of success. Gain vision into:

◦ Challenges impeding time to market

◦ Starting with the right ideas

◦ Ways to derisk your process

◦ Effective execution with a PPM solution

Download your copy at Planview.com/LaunchWindowsWhitepaper.

http://www.planview.com/m1/pd/resource-planning-strategies-sf/?WT.mc_id=315WP05339

http://www.planview.com/m1/pd/prioritize-products-optimize-resources-sf/?WT.mc_id=314EC00339

http://www.planview.com/m1/pd/fixed-product-launch-windows-sf/?WT.mc_id=311WP03739

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• Access The 3rd Product Portfolio Management Benchmark Study. In 2012, 320 product development executives and managers participated in the online survey on the state of product portfolio management, conducted by Appleseed Partners and OpenSky Research, and sponsored by Planview. Here are just a few of the many illuminating stats gathered from respondents:

◦ 68% indicate they have too many projects for their resources

◦ 90% rely on informal ways to integrate the customer voice into the product development process

◦ 55% indicate they are not able to measure the cost of a product launch delay

While the report reveals trends across the past three surveys, an overriding theme of this study is the need to innovate smarter and harder. In addition to insightful statistics and informative data on the state of product portfolio management, the report provides thought-provoking recommendations for all product development organizations.

Download the full report at Planview.com/ThirdPPMBenchmarkStudy.

VIII. About the Product Development View of the Resource Management Capacity Planning Study

A. About the Report

This report is an extension of the Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study 2013, available at Planview.com/RMCPBenchmarkStudy. Containing product development specific charts and analysis not presented in the original report, this report speaks explicitly to product development organizations.

To develop the research on which both the original study and this report are based, Appleseed Partners and OpenSky Research, commissioned by Planview, conducted the first in-depth benchmark study on the state of resource management and capacity planning at project-based organizations. The survey, run during November and December 2012, garnered participation from more than 600 global executives and managers responsible for the planning and utilization of human resources to deliver services, projects, and/or products for their organizations.

B. Use of the Report

Please contact [email protected] for all inquiries, comments, and permissions to use portions of the report in the public domain.

C. Study Objectives

The study was conducted to deepen the understanding of the state of resource management and capacity planning at large, complex, project-based companies and organizations. Executives at these organizations have expressed, through a variety of adjacent surveys and studies that “having too many projects for their resources” is their number one pain point, leading to concerns about maximizing the productivity of their most scarce resource: people.

To date, there has not been a study this comprehensive on the subject – one that covers global organizations and spans various facets of business. The objective of this survey was to delve into the disciplines of resource management and capacity planning and identify the maturity level of these organizations; the top pain points specifically for these areas; causes, risks, and other aspects of people, process, and technology. An additional goal was to understand the characteristics of the most mature, best performers in these areas and the best practices that they recommend.

http://www.planview.com/thirdppmbenchmarkstudy/

http://http://www.planview.com/m1/pd/resource-managment-capacity-planning-benchmark-study-sf/?WT.mc_id=319RR01739


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D. Study Participants and Methodology

The study started by conducting phone interviews with executives and managers of large, project-based organizations. This served to develop the online survey conducted by Appleseed Partners and OpenSky Research. Participants were qualified as being part of their organization’s resource management or capacity planning process.

Participants were asked which groups their resource management and capacity planning process covered; 281 participants from Product Development were included in the more than 600 total participants. This Product Development View includes only those answers provided by these 281 product development participants.

Note that not all questions were required and that respondent numbers are provided for all graphs. Because of this, the total number of responses for any given question varies from the total number of survey respondents.

Participants shared their company or organization size by annual USD revenue. The breakdown is:

• > $5.1B: 24%

• $1.1B-$5B: 16%

• $500M-$1B: 16%

• < $500M: 25%

• Remainder do not know or do not report revenues

For full demographics, please download the Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study 2013 at Planview.com/RMCPBenchmarkStudy.

IX. The Maturity Matrix

This matrix was designed as an objective benchmarking tool for the survey; it can, however, be leveraged by any organization to identify where it lies today, and uncover and address specific opportunities that can result in tangible benefits.

Capacity Planning Maturity Levels

Level 1-Basic • Very limited understanding of capacity or demand

• No process for visibility

Level 2-Ad-hoc • Visibility is limited and relies on ad-hoc processes

• Not feasible to consolidate resource visibility across the groups/projects

Level 3-Limited • High-level visibility of how staff and contract resources align with demand

• Not a complete or repeatable process

Level 4-Managed • Effective planning process with visibility of role-level demand before work is committed

• Can balance organization-wide capacity against prioritized pipeline

• Still difficult to adapt to changes and reprioritize

Level 5-Optimized • Planning is continually monitored based on up-to-date capacity and demand data

• Can run scenarios to manage change and prioritization

• Can apply most valuable resources to the highest-value projects


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RESEARCH REPORT

For more than 20 years, Planview has been advancing the discipline of portfolio management, helping our customers change the way they manage people and money to make better business decisions. With a singular focus on portfolio management, Planview is the only company that combines customer-driven software, unmatched domain expertise, and proven best practices to solve each customer’s unique business problems. For more information, visit www.planview.com. © 2013 Planview, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks acknowledged.


Resource Management Maturity Levels

Level 1-Basic • Unable to view workload and activities from a resource perspective

• Basic understanding of how resources are grouped by role (i.e., engineer, analyst)

• Assignments are made verbally, and resources are often overbooked or idle. No data to show resources’ start/end dates, committed, etc.

Level 2-Ad-hoc • Track high-level deliverables or key milestones against a project

• Informally coordinate availability and assignment mostly by generic role, process is manual

Level 3-Limited • Project- or phase-level named resource assignment and simple role-based planning

• Visibility into the projects each person is working on/percent time allocated, no roll-off dates

• Actual time completed captured, little on upcoming assignments

Level 4-Managed • Detailed project schedules with short-term named resource assignments

• Resource requests are at the role level

• Resource assignments are made at a task level for better visibility

• Global resource visibility, but difficult to adapt to changes and reprioritize

• Ability to select from low-cost resource pools/offshore resources

Level 5-Optimized • Mature work and activity planning process. Detailed, task-level schedules, cost information

• Formal process to request and approve resources by role and skill, short/long term

• Adapt to change and iterate effectively

• Project managers ensure that resource assignments on projects are current and accurate, resources can provide feedback

X. About the Chief Researcher

Maureen Carlson is a partner at Appleseed Partners, an independent marketing consulting and research firm. Maureen has 20 years of experience in high technology, business-to-business marketing, research, and consulting. She has focused on product marketing for hardware, software, and professional services and has deep experience across various market segments including Manufacturing and Healthcare. She is the researcher and author of three benchmark studies with Planview focused on Product Portfolio Management. Follow Maureen on Twitter: @mocarlson.

XI. About Planview

This report was sponsored by Planview, a maker and provider of product and resource portfolio management software with hundreds of global enterprise customers. Known for its singular focus on portfolio management and its customer-centric culture, the company’s comprehensive solutions successfully manage a wide range of portfolios spanning product development, IT, services, and corporate finance. The result is an enterprise-wide view of resources against demand. Learn more about Planview at Planview.com.

Carlson, M. (2013). Resource Management and Capacity Planning Benchmark Study.

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