Success Stories from

Leading Companies

An energy company created significant staffing efficiencies by adopting

a more dedicated resourcing model

Yet progress and productivity were stagnating significantly at ResCo.

Key specialists with integral skills were rarely available and projects
invariably slid beyond expected scopes, budgets, and timelines. Both
projects and day-to-day business responsibilities were suffering.
Management was confounded as everyone cried out that they were
overworked, however they knew the organization was overstaffed,
having easily coped with higher workloads at busier times.

Over-worked or over-staffed?
Attention was turned to rationalizing the workload. An exercise
was undertaken to identify all the projects and initiatives that
were being undertaken across the organization, as well as who
was involved. ResCo expected to find that the organization was
creaking under the weight of work and operating near capacity.
It wasnt. In fact, with the exception of certain specialists, there
was plenty of capacity for all the project work. The problem was
more deeply hidden.

Myth-busting
The organization had fallen prey to some classic and common
misunderstandings, namely:
Lots of work means lots of progress
The more people involved, the better the outcome
Fully utilize critical resources to get the most done
If things arent getting done, more oversight is needed
As a result, most people were working on multiple projects critical
specialists were allocated (formally and informally) across many
more. Most resource were allocated to two or more projects, as well
as their normal business responsibilities. Critically, for every 1 fulltime-equivalent (FTE), this effort was on average split across
5 contributors (and in many cases this was as high as 10 or more
contributors per FTE).

A leaner, more productive organization

When resource is spread across a range of highly variable, creative
project work, inter-dependency and waiting time compounds
exponentially. Moreover, more projects mean adding even more
overhead activity. ResCo was no different.

www.wilsonperumal.com
contact@wilsonperumal.com

Reorganizing ResCos operating model according to these

resourcing principles immediately demonstrated that:
Day-to-day (non-project) work could easily be undertaken
with 25% leaner workforce, even including contingency for
unexpected demand peaks
The productive potential of dedicated project staff could
double, despite the added utilization buffer
New
staffing

120%

Previous
staffing

3.5
3

100%

2.5

80%

60%

Project Team
Productivity

ResCo is an internationally recognized public sector organization

with a mandate to oversee the safe, efficient and responsible
development of natural resources. Improving effectiveness and
efficiency both for stakeholders and internally is always top of
ResCos agenda. Everyone is expected to contribute; usually by
helping with numerous projects and initiatives over and above their
normal business responsibilities.

ResCo resolved to dedicate fewer individuals more wholeheartedly

to fewer projects at a time, while introducing a utilization buffer of
at least 30%. By reducing individuals work variation and enforcing
buffer time, ResCo exponentially stripped back the compounded
queueing time that had become engrained and relieved the
overhead tax which proliferated with each additional project.

Productivity Per Person

Not an uncommon situation

1.5

40%

20%

0.5
0

0%
1

10 11 12 13

14

15

Number of Individuals in Project Team

Productivity Per Person (i.e. Productivity Capacity)

Team Productivity

Figure: By having smaller, more focused project teams, the productive

capacity of the organization more than doubled

Results

Overall, reorganizing the same work under a more

focused model, even allowing for a resourcing
buffer on all work, created efficiencies that
would not previously have been attainable. Under
this new model, by reducing the dependency and
complexity, the organization had now become
10% overstaffed; excess capacity that was
immediately transferred via staff re-allocation.

Are your employees too busy to be productive?

Are your efficiency initiatives backfiring?
Wilson Perumal & Company, Inc.

Wilson Perumal & Company, Ltd.

One Galleria Tower, 13355 Noel Road

Suite 1100 Dallas, TX 75240

Longcroft House, 2/8 Victoria Avenue

London EC2M 4NS, United Kingdom