How to take the pain out of resource planning in Jira

At its heart, resource planning is about knowing when, how, or if you have the people and budget needed to deliver a project. While Jira has many strengths, the complexities of resource planning often stretch the product past its optimal range. Here we want to take at some of the do’s and don’ts of resource planning in Jira.

But first, some basics…

What is resource planning in Jira?

Resource planning in Jira is the process of allocating team members, time, and budget toward a project. The entire aim is to identify what’s needed, allocate it, and then track its usage as the project begins. This means forecasting resource needs, assigning resources to specific tasks, and monitoring resource utilization. Doing this well helps teams to optimize their workloads, avoid over- or under-utilization of resources, and drives productivity and project success.

Benefits of resource planning

Maybe too obvious to mention, but let’s do it anyway. There’s more to it than meets the eye. The aims of good resource planning are:

1. Aligning the right people for the job: Less relevant if your teams follow a "pull” model of working, but otherwise resource planning is about matching people to the job, and understanding when they might be available.

2. Better throughput: Good resource planning means staffing such that everyone can hold as close as possible a target WIP (work in progress) limit. Fundamentally, this means letting each person can finish what’s on their plate before taking on new work—a focus on finishing work, not starting it. When people don’t have to context switch across a variety of tasks, when they can focus on just a small handful, and only pick up new work when those are done, everyone is happier and more productive.

3. Reduced costs: Effective resource planning helps you avoid expensive mistakes, such as overstaffing or understaffing.

4. Better morale: By ensuring workloads are balanced and people aren’t constantly slammed with work, resource planning helps prevent burnout and maintain a healthy work-life balance for employees, contributing to higher job satisfaction and retention rates.

Resource planning in Jira: tips & advice

Resource planning in Jira is by no means simple, but these steps should help you figure out how to handle it relatively effectively. Bear in mind there’s a learning curve involved, even for people who are steeped in Jira.

This is largely because Jira is designed around Agile, with a focus on specific tasks rather than overarching goals. Agile expects project needs to evolve over time, and so resource planning is more…fluid.

As such, the following guidelines will likely leave you wanting more, as Jira simply does not have the ability to perform in-depth and effective resource planning—at least not without help.

Set deadlines and monitor milestones

Jira allows you to set deadlines for tasks. This means you clarify for your team when something is projected to be completed, or when they should aim for this completion. Presenting expectations in this clear way helps people to understand what they should be attempting to do, and gives an indication of how you are planning resources to be allocated, especially when it comes to team members.

Of course, deadlines are useful, especially for setting expectations, but checking to see the progress on milestones is better at discovering how resources are being used. They can help to identify whether milestone completions are aligning with deadlines. Using this alongside deadlines is great for managing time and resources efficiently. It allows teams to adapt their strategies and workflows if they are not meeting their objectives as planned.

Enable capacity planning in sprints

If you use Jira Premium or Enterprise, then you get access to capacity planning for sprints. Your team’s capacity will be measured in week-long increments, and you can set the capacity in days or hours.

For this to work, you need to use a board as your issue source, and your teams need to be associated with an issue source. Alongside this, at least one issue must be assigned to a sprint and a team.

You can even see this in action by getting a timeline view of your team’s activity and efforts. Go to the View Settings menu and choose to group your issues by Team or Sprint. Then click to show capacity on timeline.

Use Jira’s dashboards

You can track real-time activity with Jira’s dashboards. This works especially well if you are looking for specific data points, as you can filter your issues to suit your needs. Two Dimension Filter Statistics is one option people tend to look out for, as it allows for analyzing the distribution of work among various teams and projects.

This gadget on the dashboard can be customized to display data based on several metrics like issue status, assignee, project phases, or any other criteria that is relevant to your project’s needs. It provides a visual representation that makes it easier to track progress and identify any bottlenecks or areas where resources might be poorly allocated.

Long-term vs short-term resource planning in Jira

Long-term resource planning in Jira involves forecasting and allocating resources over an extended period, typically spanning months or quarters. This approach is essential for organizations with large, complex projects or multiple concurrent initiatives. It allows for strategic decision-making, ensuring that resources are aligned with long-term business goals and that potential bottlenecks or resource constraints are identified and addressed proactively.

Short-term resource planning, on the other hand, focuses on a more immediate time frame, usually ranging from a few weeks to a few months. This approach is better suited for Agile teams working on shorter sprints or iterations, where resource requirements may fluctuate more frequently. Short-term planning enables teams to respond quickly to changing priorities, adjust resource allocations based on real-time progress, and optimize resource utilization for the current workload.

While Jira is a powerful tool for project management and resource planning, it does have limitations when it comes to long-term and complex resource planning scenarios:

1. Limited visibility: Jira's native resource planning capabilities provide a relatively narrow view, making it challenging to gain a comprehensive understanding of resource availability and utilization across multiple projects or teams.

2. Inflexible scheduling: Jira's scheduling functionality may not be flexible enough to accommodate complex resource constraints, such as varying skill levels, resource availability, and dependencies between tasks or projects.

3. Lack of advanced forecasting: Jira lacks robust forecasting capabilities, which are essential for long-term resource planning. Forecasting helps organizations anticipate future resource needs, identify potential bottlenecks, and make informed decisions about resource allocation and capacity planning.

Luckily, Jira’s weaknesses here are Socratic’s strengths.

Resource planning meets machine learning

Socratic brings powerful resource management capabilities that, connected to Jira, give teams an entirely new way to plan, allocate, and monitor resources effectively.

With Socratic, you can see at a glance your team's availability and workload distribution across every project. This empowers you to make informed decisions when allocating resources, ensuring that tasks are assigned to the most suitable team members based on their expertise and availability.

Socratic's powerful Scenarios capability allows you to anticipate future resource demands and proactively plan for upcoming projects. By analyzing historical data and factoring in team member availability, Socratic provides accurate forecasts, allowing you to identify potential resource gaps or conflicts well in advance.

Additionally, Socratic's comprehensive reporting and analytics features provide valuable insights into resource utilization, project progress, and team performance. You can monitor key metrics, identify bottlenecks, and make data-driven decisions to optimize resource allocation and project delivery.

Socratic's bi-directional sync with Jira ensures a smooth and consistent user experience, eliminating the need for context switching or data duplication. Team members can access and update resource information directly within the familiar Jira environment, fostering collaboration and increasing productivity.

Parting thoughts

Resource planning is a critical aspect of project management that should not be overlooked. By effectively planning and allocating resources, teams can ensure that projects are completed on time, within budget, and with the necessary skills and expertise. Jira, a powerful project management tool, provides a solid foundation for resource planning, but it may require additional plugins or solutions to fully optimize the process.

The key takeaways:

1. Follow the step-by-step process outlined for resource planning in Jira, including understanding project requirements, setting up the project, defining roles and skills, estimating workload, allocating resources, balancing workload, and tracking progress.

2. Differentiate between long-term and short-term resource planning, and recognize Jira's limitations in addressing long-term planning needs.

3. Leverage additional solutions, such as Socratic, to enhance resource planning capabilities within Jira.

Effective resource planning is essential for project success, and Jira, when combined with the right tools and processes, can streamline and optimize this crucial aspect of project management. By investing time and effort into resource planning, teams can ensure that projects are delivered efficiently, effectively, and with minimal disruptions.