Resource Plan Creation and Monitoring
Q1. Complete the table below to outline each of the following content within a resources plan.
Resource plan content |
Description |
Acquisition and allocation of resources |
Resource acquisition is dependent on the availability of the resources and its capacity to acquire resources. Allocation of resources includes assigning and managing assets that are important for achieving organisational goals and objectives (Abouamod and Awad 2017). |
Timelines and the relationship to business strategies |
Timelines are important for ensuring the transparency and efficiency of the project. Timelines help the teams to understand the project briefly and keep informed and aligned at every stage of the project. |
Contingency plans and processes |
Contingency plans are used by the managers to make themselves aware of the business risks that are involved in any project or business process. Example – Government uses its contingency plan to recover the economy of the country which is affected due to the covid-19 pandemic (Cardil and de-Miguel 2020). The contingency process can be termed as an alternative plan which is implemented when expected results in a business fail to materialise. |
Costs and budgets |
Cost plans include the estimation of the total cost that the business would require to implement during the business functions (Hansen, Mowen and Heitger 2021). Cost planning is a continuous process and it keeps evolving throughout the business project. A budget refers to a statement that indicates a certain amount of money that will be spent throughout the business operations over a period of time (Papke-Shields and Boyer-Wright 2017). A budget plan is prepared in the business process to set a limit of expenditure that helps the business to determine its affordability. A budget plan it prepared at the beginning of the business process or project management. |
Q2. Complete the table below to describe information sources when monitoring the usage of physical and human resources. The first row has been completed as an example for you to follow.
Information source |
Description |
Examples |
Colleagues/Employees |
Colleagues or employees are an important part of an organisation and can be part of the same team or from a different team as well. |
Some of the important examples include team members, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and manager of a different team. |
External consultants |
External consultants are required to create consistency across all operational plans and resources allocated (Kirton and Greene 2019). |
Resource requirements specialists. Management consultants. |
Strategic plan |
Actions related to the operational plan originate from the strategic plan. |
Strategic objective of Strengthening club culture is addressed in the operation plan by the action hold social events. |
Budgets and forecasts |
It provides financial information for allocating resources and establishing KPIs. |
Forecasted sales may impact how many sales representatives are employed. |
Legislation and regulatory authorities |
Laws that have been made by the state or country, must be followed by the Authorities that regulate legislative compliance |
Fairtrade laws Corporations Act Privacy Act Environmental protection agencies Australian financial security Authority |
Organisational policies and procedures |
These policies and procedures are created by the organization in order to explain and guide expectations in the organization (Madhukar and Sharma 2017). |
Templates Hierarchy of control Employment process Performance review process |
Q3. Complete the table below to describe the requirements for resources included in operational plans:
Resource Type |
Description of the resources and 2 examples |
How to acquire the resource |
Physical |
It includes hardware equipment, software facilities and transport. Examples – i. Specific machinery to produce a product or software required to manage a process. ii. Furniture, computers, phones and others. |
How do you acquire physical resources and/or services? It is important to follow the policies and procedures of the organisation to acquire physical resources. Organisations have purchasing policy that decides which goods or services to be purchased for the business. What does a procurement process include (list at least four considerations)? i. Needs recognition ii. Purchase requisition iii. Solicitation process iv. Contract and evaluation Relevant organisational policies and procedures (at least one): Workplace policies and procedures. |
Financial |
Financial resources include all financial funds of an organisation. Example – Cash or money, bank deposit which includes checking accounts and money market accounts. |
What workplace documents provides information about financial resources (describe at least one)? Income statements provide details regarding revenue and expenses to indicate the financial position of the business (Robison and Barry 2020). How does the budgeted and actual finances influence profitability and productivity of the operational plan? It is a major factor in making crucial decisions. Every decision is taken into account for acquiring budget and actual finance. Explain how to obtain additional finances: i. Reducing and rearranging of expenses. ii. Selling of assets iii. Increasing or decreasing prices. |
Human |
Human resource includes set of people who prepare a workforce for the organisation. Example includes business sector, industry and economy. |
How do you recruit staff? The staff recruitment process includes – i. Creating a job description ii. Advertising of available position. iii. Conducting interview iv. Evaluation of candidates v. Final selection List at least two induction strategies: the two induction strategies include preparing an induction checklist and encouraging social interaction with the team. Relevant organisational policies and procedures (at least one): Important policy and -procedure include performance management. |
Q4. Explain the importance of budgetary control.
The importance of budgetary control are as follows –
i. Budgets are based on definite plans and budgets enable the different individuals of what is expected from them.
ii. It promotes enhanced efficiency and economy as it is an effective method to control costs and eliminate waste.
iii. It facilitates proper two-way communication in the organisation. The construction of budgets is prepared based on the feedback information which is provided by the lower levels of the organisation (Lambovska, Rajnoha and Dobrovi? 2019).
iv. It is an important tool of control where it compares with the actual performance of the budget to detect the loopholes, where the attention of the management is mostly needed.
v. It acts as a strong incentive of motivation for the employees by fixing targets in performance.
vi. It helps the management to effectively track the performance of the company and helps in making necessary changes wherever needed.
Q5. Explain how a cost plan can assist in managing costs and its use over the project life cycle.
i. A proper cost management plan helps in accurately estimating the future expenditure and helps in generating the expected revenues for the project (Hansen, Mowen and Heitger 2021).
ii. It helps in controlling the cost of certain activities during the project that helps in gaining better control over the complete business budget.
iii. It helps in pre-defining the costs of majority of the project activities and are maintained through business records.
iv. It helps in maintaining the budget balance through preventing over expenditure in any business component.
v. It helps in assisting the project manager in prioritising the project activities by limiting the financial flow in a strict manner.
vi. It helps in minimising the additional expenses in the project as all are required to be approved by the project manager in an organisation.
Q6. List two organisational policies and procedures that may apply to cost management in relation projects and resources.
Essential Requirements for Resource Planning
The units of measurements include dimensions, quantity, capacity, amount and others. All these units are important for establishing a common point of reference that helps in facilitating communication and avoiding complications in understanding with relation to the project.
Establishing reporting protocols, format and frequency in all stages of a project is the primary importance, when the manager considers that the project usually has more than two reporting periods (Fleming and Koppelman 2016). It is extremely efficient in detecting deviations from the original plan.
Q7. Write down a simple step by step procedure for a resource allocation review.
iDivide the project into tasks– Resource allocation is the most important part of a project and hence the project needs to be divided into a various task so that it can be easily managed.
ii. Assign the resources– resources like labour, equipment, materials and others needs to be assigned in the task for the success of the project.
iii. Determine attributes of resources– The attributes include grade, skill, quality and availability need to be determined carefully in order to carry out the project work.
iv. Levelling of resources– It refers to the process of inspecting the resources to ensure the use of these resources as effectively as possible.
v. Reallocation– resource re-allocation needs to be a constant and inescapable function of the project manager.
vi. Resource utilization tracking– it is important to track the resource utilisation rate of the project regularly.
Q8. Explain four procedures that a company could use to minimise risk.
i. Lead by example– All the employees in the organisation need to participate in a safety committee and share recommendations throughout the company to reduce the risk in management in the company.
ii. Promote a healthy workspace– The health and working hours of the employees need to be properly monitored. The company should promote a healthy lifestyle of the employees and provide them suitable working hours (Grawitch and Ballard 2016).
iii. Act quickly– the company should act quickly during any risk and needs to investigate the matter thereon the eliminate the existing risk.
iv. Keep individuals connected– the management should maintain an individual connection with every employee in the organisation in order to monitor the activities of every employee. Thus, any risk occurring in the organisation can be easily detected and can be eliminated thereon without harming the individuals.
Q9. Explain how legislation and its related regulatory requirements relate to risk management. In your answer:
Process of Resource Planning
Identify two different legislative and regulatory requirements that may apply to risk management.
Legislative requirements include subordinate legislation and delegated legislation. The regulatory requirements include document compliance and monitoring changes.
For each legislative requirement, explain how it relates to risk management.
Legislation and regulatory bodies are stakeholders in any risk management process. there are laws that ensure that organisations meet a minimum standard of care to verify the authenticity of their activities.
Provide one example of how regulations support one of the legislations.
An example is subsidiary legislation that includes regulations, rules, codes and others. This requires publishing in the government to become legal. It may also include official documents that are required under the Act.
Q10. The broader environment impacts on a business. Provide one example of how potential changes in government priorities can impact a business and the risk management strategies that can be put in place.
Impact on business – due to the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, the majority of the restaurants are forced to close their operations due to lockdown across the world. Thus, it had affected many restaurants business financially as they have been unable to operate due to strict government proprieties and regulation and hence, suffered huge loss.
Risk management strategy – many of the restaurant and food houses have shifted to food delivery services. They have either started their own food delivery services or have merged with any food delivery companies to deliver food to the customers.
Q11. Discuss the purpose of risk management standards. Include an example of a risk management standard in your answer.
The purpose of the risk management standard is to identify, assess and control risks which are associated with the business operations. It provides a framework which the management can apply in the organisation to minimise the risk.
An example of risk management standard is AUS/NS ISO: 31000: 2009, which is the international standard for the risk management (ISO, 2020). It provides comprehensive principles and guidelines that helps with the risk analysis and risk assessments in an organisation.
References
Abouamod, S. and Awad, W.S., 2017, May. Acquisition Budget Allocation Using Decision Support System. In 2017 9th IEEE-GCC Conference and Exhibition (GCCCE) (pp. 1-9). IEEE.
Cardil, A. and de-Miguel, S., 2020. COVID-19 jeopardizes the response to coming natural disasters. Saf Sci, 130, p.104861.
Fleming, Q.W. and Koppelman, J.M., 2016, December. Earned value project management. Project Management Institute.
Grawitch, M.J. and Ballard, D.W. eds., 2016. The psychologically healthy workplace: Building a win-win environment for organizations and employees. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Hansen, D.R., Mowen, M.M. and Heitger, D.L., 2021. Cost management. Cengage Learning.
Hansen, D.R., Mowen, M.M. and Heitger, D.L., 2021. Cost management. Cengage Learning.
ISO, 2020. ISO 31000 – risk management. ISO. Available at: https://www.iso.org/iso-31000-risk-management.html [Accessed March 12, 2022].
Kirton, G. and Greene, A.M., 2019. Telling and selling the value of diversity and inclusion—External consultants’ discursive strategies and practices. Human Resource Management Journal, 29(4), pp.676-691.
Lambovska, M., Rajnoha, R. and Dobrovi?, J., 2019. From quality to quantity and vice versa: how to evaluate performance in the budgetary control process. Journal of Competitiveness.
Madhukar, V. and Sharma, S., 2017. Organisational climate: A conceptual perspective. Article in International Journal of Management and Business.
Papke-Shields, K.E. and Boyer-Wright, K.M., 2017. Strategic planning characteristics applied to project management. International Journal of Project Management, 35(2), pp.169-179.
Robison, L.J. and Barry, P.J., 2020. Accrual income statements and present value models. Agricultural Finance Review.