Resource conflicts

Developed by Thordis R. Ragnarsdottir

Overview

The management of numerous projects (or a portfolio of projects) at once has become a more widespread and pressing problem as project-based organizational structures have become more prevalent in modern businesses [1]. Substantial number of changes are common when it comes to a projects’ processes and as a result, different projects usually need to compete with one another for resources, particularly human resources. It is a challenge that involves ongoing resource management on the part of organizations to keep the appropriate relationship between resource availability and demand. The difficulty is in acquiring and integrating data about the organization's present status — such as pipeline load, resource utilization, strategic goals, etc. — across ongoing and forthcoming initiatives [2]. In this article, sources, and management of resource conflicts in project portfolio management will be introduced and followed with a more detailed discussion based on literature review on the Resource-constrained multi-project scheduling problem (RCMPSP). The method's purpose is to prioritize tasks to optimize an objective function, such as reducing delay to each project or the portfolio as a whole. It has been claimed that up to 90% of the value of all projects is derived from the context of multiple projects, thus even a slight improvement in their management might have a significant positive effect [1].