The Resource Management Process Maturity Evaluation

The questionnaire is recommended to to get an initial idea of your maturity level and then use the results to guide the improvement of your resource management. We understand that resource management can differ between locations, offices, and business units or services, and you may need to identify the maturity for each to assess your firm's overall resource management priorities. Answer this for the part of the business you are currently looking to improve.

Once complete, you’ll set a goal level for your resource management and work over the next 12-24 months to achieve your goal. Mastering resource management is a proven way to increase efficiency to drives profitability and increase the overall. The time invested improving your efficiency is a powerful lever that will pay off every year going forward.

The best-kept secret behind high-performing firms

The fact that resource management improves everything about an organizations has been a well kept secret despite organizations like the Project Management Institute, the Center for Business Practices, and business consulting firms like PwC, touting its benefits for decades. Research has consistently shown that organizations with mature resource management see improvements in customer satisfaction, organizational efficiency, profit, and overall business performance.  

More than sixteen years ago, a study by the Center for Business Practices (CBP) determined that resource management challenges were one of the most significant issues facing organizations at the time. Their research also demonstrated the clear correlation the level of resource management maturity and overall organizational performance of organizations. The bars represent the performance rating of companies in the study, with the colors representing the level of resource management maturity from ‘Level 1’ in yellow to ‘Level 5’ in purple.

Most notably, as organizations mature their resource management practices, overall organizational performance improves on all eight organizational performance measures used in the study. The CBP report found the top 25% high-performing organizations were at a significantly higher level of resource management maturity than low-performing organizations. The data is clear—improve resource and everything about the business improves. They also found that about three of every four firms (75%) evaluated had a low maturity of resource management in their organization. Somehow today, sixteen years later, we find firms in the same place, still struggling to effectively manage their people resources.

The research and results of resource management software is compelling and leaders need to stop underestimating resource management’s strategic importance. Similar to improving the assembly line for manufacturing businesses, you need to optimize the efficiency of production. For project based and time-billing businesses, this means improving all processes that allow you to sell more time.

How exactly does resource management drive improvements

From the data we see that resource management improved all eight groups, but how?

If you're selling time, there are very few ways to optimize the business. You can cut operating costs, increase prices, or increase efficiency. If you're lucky, you can cut operating costs by 2-5%. Maybe you can increase prices 5-10%—but you could also lose clients. If you increase efficiency though, you can 2-4x profitability. The lever of control of efficiency in time is resource management.

In professional services and project-based organizations on average, only 59-60% of the organizations time is billable, firm-wide (including admin, operations, and finance functions). Year after year, organizations like ERP provider Deltek consistently report the utilization rate in this narrow range. These averages and corresponding low profits points to a resource management problem.highlight the inefficiency in the workflows and processes outlined above, and what's possible when the process is improved.

Utilizatoin has a direct correlation to profitability, and as the utilization rate goes from 59 to 65%, the profit increases from 6-10% to 30-40%. These statistics are highlighted in PSMJs ‘Circle of Excellence’ Report which recognizes firms that demonstrate outstanding business performance, detailed here in “How to Double Profit . The real lever of resource planning is improving the efficiency of which time is managed and reducing downtime, that can drive the utilization rate well beyond averages. As with any industry, from manufacturing to retail, automation, and efficiency is the key to driving powerful business results. Financially, efficient resource management  translates directly into increased profitability

Resource management maturity

Why is resource management so underdeveloped in firms despite research consistently showing it can significantly improve organizational performance? If the data is so clear, why has it still been neglected by firms decades later?

In speaking to thousands of firms, we’ve seen that they all understand that how they manage people impacts their efficiency, the problem is that they think they are at a higher level of resource management maturity than they actually are. Simply having a resource management workflow does not mean the firm is at a level five. Like everything in life, from education to sports, resource management has many levels. There’s a massive difference between the college baseball and professional baseball, but it’s not obvious what those differences are if you haven’t played professionally.

Because it’s not clear to firms how to go from level one to level five, diagnosing the resource management improvements needed is essential. In response, we created an evaluation questionnaire below to help understand where you sit, identify inefficiencies, and what you need to do to improve. The result isn’t just a score — the results allows us to create a roadmap to get where you need to go. It helps highlight specific areas where investment in process, capability, or technology will yield the most impact. Our goal is to demystify the process and help firms master this critical business function.