The Control Resources process relates to the management of resources assigned to the project. This includes physical resources such as IT systems, hardware, office space and materials but does not include human resources as these are dealt with in the Manage Team process.
Controlling Resources commences with using the Project Plan to determine what resources are needed, then assigning them to the various tasks on the project at the correct time. This process continues throughout the project lifecycle to ensure the planned resources are ready and available as required to avoid delays in delivery
The Control Resources process also monitors the utilisation of the resources against the plan and where necessary will result in corrective action to shorten or extend the time that the resources are needed. The process needs to be made aware of any changes to the plan that impact when the resources are required.
The Control Resources process is applied from the start of the project and throughout on a regular basis to provide efficient and timely use of project resources. This is particularly important as changes in the project schedule will impact the use of such resource, for example, test environments may need to be extended to accommodate an overrun in that phase of the project.
This process extends beyond the scheduling and availability of resources. The quality, quantity and usability of the resources need to be managed as well to ensure the products meet the quality expectations of the project.
The resources required by a project can be scarce and expensive, so the Control Resources process also needs to ensure resources are not wasted or unused as this will have an adverse impact on the project budget.
The outputs from this process will provide updates to the overall resource plan as well as the risk and issue logs.