Lack of resources in the workplace
|
Show
The underlying cause of a number of the mistakes we have been discussing is a lack of resources, most notably people to work on some necessary aspect of your project. These people can be employees of your company who are assigned to work on your project, or they can be volunteers, including employees of other companies. Many projects do not have anyone assigned to be a community manager or coordinator. That can compound any resource problems because the community coordinator is the person who recruits volunteers from the community to help out. For a smaller project, this can be done by the project owner, whereas for bigger projects, it might be part of the product manager's job. For large projects, it can become a full-time job. The most common reason a project's website becomes stale is that no one has time to update it. Outside contributions can get ignored when module owners are too busy. Someone needs to write the internal documentation needed to orient potential contributors. Make sure that you don't let critical tasks remain undone: Assign an employee of your company or find an outside volunteer. One of the primary reasons to do an open-source project is to benefit from feedback from outside your company. If you do not have the resources to take advantage of this community feedback, then you are missing out on a major opportunity. Many company-sponsored open-source projects suffer from this problem by having inflexible plans made without consulting their communities. In addition to not acting on the good ideas suggested by your community members, you alienate them by ignoring what they are trying to tell you. They will stop wasting their time trying to interact with you and devote their energy elsewhere. A related problem is using the wrong resources. An open-source project is a development effort that exploits continuous design but with further opportunities for marketing-related and other strategic efforts. Nevertheless, the heart of the activity is development with development goals and practices. Things can go wrong if an organization other than engineering or development is the home for open-source projects and open-source oversight. For example, sometimes a company will determine that it needs to build a community of developers for some strategic purpose such as executing on a "developer capture" program designed to lure more developers into the company's camp. Because this is a marketing activity, it might seem natural to locate oversight in a marketing group, so that, for example, measurements of progress and of the nature of the developers captured can be made. However, a marketing group is unlikely to know enough about software development to oversee the community, nor is it likely to have a reason to care about ongoing software development once the developers have been "captured."
The problem is often expressed as:
The first thing to do is to re-evaluate the way you currently work. If you are already maxed out, using the same strategy to take on the additional workload is not going to be effective. Your management team may not expect you to do the same work as your former colleagues, but to re-invent the way the work is done instead. RE-DEFINE YOUR WAY OF WORKINGIf you keep working around the clock and always hit your deadlines then you are proving to your employer that you don’t need more resources. Worse still the more you skip lunch and take work home with you the more will be expected from you. When you do this you undermine yourself. You need to create a strategy to help prioritise the work load, re-define it and share the problem. Here are some tips that may help you. 1. IS THERE A SMARTER WAY OF WORKING?Spend some time to think about how you work. You may find that you have systems or processes in place that are no longer of benefit to you. You may have inherited systems or processes from other people and have never questioned if there was a more effective way to deliver them. Can some be automated or better documented or are they even needed at all? Be honest with yourself. Could you save time by not making as many trips to the printer? Could you spend less time on tasks that are a low priority? Think of the end goal and whether you could still get there with less steps. If however you have exhausted those possibilities and the workload is not achievable then you need to move to the next step. 2. RAISE AWARENESS OF THE SCALE OF THE WORKSometimes line managers or colleagues will pile work on you having no idea of what it takes to complete or deliver. If you fail to draw their attention to this you are failing yourself. Communicate in a non-confrontational way the scale of the work they have set you. Reassure them that you want to deliver a high quality product, service, or outcome but that you are unable to because what they are asking for is unrealistic with the given timescale/budget/resource. They may not have realised this. Never assume someone thinks the same way as you. It might really surprise your line manager to know that to deliver that report each week takes half a day and 4 people. Show the actual state vs the desired state and what you need to be able to give them what they want. 3. OVERCOME FEAR OF FAILUREA common problem I see time and time again with coaching clients is that they take all the pressure on themselves to deliver the impossible. Their fear of failure drives them into the ground mentally and physically. Their fear of saying “no” ends up with them burning out. When they face up to their fear of failing and free themselves of it, along with their unhelpful belief systems they no longer feel like they need to take on the impossible. I work with clients to take them beyond their fears so they can move forward. Communicate that the unreasonable expectations and workload is actually putting the business at risk. Your job as an employee is to shine the spotlight on this and to help your company avoid penalties, fines, loss of profit, a sullied reputation etc. Share the responsibility of what is doable by asking your line manager or customer to collaboratively decide what is and isn’t tolerable in terms of risk and deliverables. Then together agree as set of achievable outcomes and priorities. One way to do this is to provide a range of costs and options. I like to use the analogy of the Chinese Set Menu. 4. CHINESE SET MENU OPTIONSLay out what you can deliver by when and for what cost. It is clear that Set Menu 1 consists of A, B and C and costs £x. With Set Menu 2 they can have A, B, C and D but for the higher price of £xx and with Set Menu 3 they can have A, B, C, not D but they can have E for £xx. Then get your line manager/customer to choose what they want. Make it their choice so you can manage their expectations about what they can have and for what level of funding. If they want the a la carte menu then they need to increase their funding. 5. SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESSDon’t accept the line of reasoning that you are just supposed to be able to absorb an unlimited amount of extra work with the same number of people/budget, and keep delivering at the same level and scope of quality, excellence and completeness. If you do, you show that you are someone who is easy to push about and can’t say no. Sadly, you will get dumped on time and time again until you break. If you present the reality and share the problem, you build credibility and respect by showing that you can do the job, but you are not willing to do it without enough resources. If you are facing this issue, you are not alone. This is a very common challenge. If you need help to navigate through situations like this The Mindset Clinic offers coaching to both individuals and businesses at very competitive rates. Rebecca Sanderson is a Mindset Coach and helps people to build happier healthier lives for themselves. What happens when there is a lack of resources in a company?If companies can't properly manage resources, they don't know which of their assets are available. This leads to resources that are spread too thin, causing projects to be understaffed and underequipped, and creates a system of inefficiencies that leads to: Teams that put in longer hours to meet project goals.
Why can a lack of resources be frustrating for staff?If the necessary resources to enable employees to do their best work are not provided, then frustration, anger, and resentment emerge. The result is a decline in employee morale, commitment, and (ultimately) performance. Always consider the context surrounding an employee's performance.
What is lacking of resources?Lack of resources usually means lack of time, people and/or money. A similar situation happens when talking to a CEO about the progress of Six Sigma/Lean implementation – lack of people, time and money…
What are resources in the workplace?In the context of business and economics, a resource is any factor that's necessary to accomplish a goal or carry out an activity. In short, they are the components that a business needs in order to do business. Resources often include employees, working space, equipment, or capital.
|
