The knowledge we have regarding how we should treat our bodies has led to the standard of professional sports to shoot up in recent years. Compare the current standard of the NBA or NFL, for example, to that of  30 or 40 years ago. The understanding of nutrition, training and sports science has given athletes a huge advantage. Thanks to the latest research and technology, today’s elite sports stars are able to make the best decisions about how they train and compete, based on highly sophisticated and detailed metrics, allowing them to reach peak physical condition, increase their longevity and better avoid and recover from injury.

The average career length of an NBA athlete was 6.99 years in 2008, versus just 2.27 in 1968. Some of that sustainability may come from players cooling off in state-of-the-art liquid nitrogen freezing chambers after games, but much more can be attributed to the knowledge of more precise nutrition.

And when we look at modern management methods, a similar trend is beginning to emerge (albeit with less cryotherapy). Whereas in the past, many businesses were run on little more than gut feeling, today we can utilize ever more sophisticated tools, such as data analytics and performance management, to ensure growth is sustainable.

However, when it comes to resource management, many businesses still get by on dated technology. Projects, and the way resources are deployed to them, continue to be managed like sports teams a few decades ago, based on gut feeling and only basic organization. Why do we continue to rely on technology that fails to manage resources effectively?

Using dated methods for planning and resources can slow you down

Project management has evolved massively over the years. Resource management, conversely, is a relatively newer practice. And while certain methodologies and software have served as capable for standard project management, they struggle when it comes to effective and efficient resource management. Let’s take a look at some of the most common techniques project managers have used for resource management in the past:


  • Excel

Microsoft Excel is a popular choice for project managers. The platform is cost-efficient and most people have been taught or are at least familiar with how it works. When it comes to resource management, a spreadsheet can tell you how under or over-allocated your resources or teams are and allow you to do some forecasting into how much things will cost or to create a reasonable project completion date.

While Excel allows you to perform basic tasks, features like budget tracking, project reporting, notifications or modelling are all unavailable. This doesn’t mean you can’t get by, but your ability to manage resources is going to be limited. What happens when inevitable project changes happen, for example? Managing changes and variables in a tool like Excel becomes extremely labor-intensive when you have to change individual resources and really get into the details.

For more information, check out our blog “Why Excel doesn’t cut it as a resource management tool


  • Preliminary project management tools

It may have entered the project management landscape ‘late’, but there is a growing understanding that resource management is a pivotal part of successful PPM. Before this was the case, though, standard project management tools were relied on for resource management, and may companies haven’t moved on from them.

A tool like Microsoft Project is a popular example of this. Users of Project often suffer a disconnect between the planning of tasks and forecasting of resources, as every Project file acts as a unique object (whether that’s a task, resource, assignment, etc.) and is therefore only applicable as a Microsoft Project file. So, like Excel, adding new resources or changing existing ones means replicating those files individually.

For more information, check out our blog Think you can succeed in enterprise resource management with Microsoft Project?

Tempus Resource lets you manage resources like the elite

Like sports stars of the modern era, elite resource managers should rely on the highest-grade tech to avoid project injury and perform to the best of their ability. Tempus Resource, from ProSymmetry, allows you to create powerful simulations to help model your projects and portfolios in real-time. You’re granted the power of resource foresight: estimate and hypothesize with ‘What-If’ scenarios to see the perceived effects of project changes before you commit the time, people and money to making it happen. This lets you improve your decision-making by exploring your options ahead of time so you can refine and balance your resources.

Technical features don’t result in a complex interface, however. Built with simplicity and transparency in mind, Tempus Resource can provide best practice whether you’ve got 50 resources or 5,000. All your resources can be managed with confidence, displayed in an intuitive and user-friendly interface that utilizes heatmaps and coolmaps so you can visualize resource allocation.

Instead of running projects on a whim, Tempus Resource is designed so you can manage your project like a true professional.

For more information on how Tempus Resource can modernize your resource management, check out this new video introducing the platform or get in touch with us.