Develop Project Staffing Plan

DescriptionDeveloping a project staffing plan involves selecting and assembling a project team.  The staffing plan specifies when and how to meet the requirements for staffing the project.  The staffing plan builds on the high-level staffing needs identified in the Initiate Stage.

Items to consider in the project staffing plan:

• How the staff will be acquired
• How long the staff will be needed
• The skills required
• What training is needed

Rationale/PurposeStaff is essential to accomplish project tasks. The staffing plan identifies the staff required and how and where to secures those staff.  Getting commitments from key staff before actual work begins is necessary.

Who is InvolvedProject Manager
Project Sponsor

ResultThis information is included in a separate section of your project plan often referred to as the “Project Staffing Plan.”

How to: Develop Project Staffing Plan

Recommended actions and strategiesThe table below lists the steps for developing a project staffing plan:

	What to do	How to do it
1	Define the specific roles and skill sets needed to execute the project’s tasks	Based on the tasks in the work breakdown structure, refine initial descriptions of roles and responsibilities identified in the high-level staffing of the Initiate Stage.
2	Determine the timetable for the needed staff	Calculate over the course of the project: The period of time the team member or skill set is needed. how many hours a person, department or entire project team will be needed each week or month
3	Determine if staff is available	Work with your organization’s management to determine if staff is available with the needed skill sets within the needed timeframe. Determine if it is necessary to acquire staff from external, contracted sources.
4	Secure the needed staff	If sufficient staff is not available, alert the project sponsors so they can help acquire the needed staff based on the priority of the project. If staff is allocated to other activities, negotiate with the staff’s management to make staff available to the project for the time needed. In some cases, the organization must determine the priority of this project relative to other projects contending for these resources.
5	Identify any training or coaching needs and plans	If the staff assigned to the project lacks the required expertise, plan for training or coaching to fulfill these needs.
6	Iteratively refine the staffing plan	As the project schedule is developed, adjustments may be required to the staffing plan.

Example: Staffing Plan

Introduction

The purpose of the staffing plan is to make certain the project has sufficient staff with the right skills and experience to ensure a successful project completion.

Role Requirements

The following is a detailed breakdown of the roles required to execute the project. It includes: the project role, the project responsibility of the role, skills required, number of staff required to fulfill the role, the estimated start date and the expected duration the staff resource will be needed on the project.

Role	Project Responsibility	Skills Required	Number of Staff Required	Estimated Start Date	Duration Required FY05-06
Project Team
Project Manager	Lead team, report status	Project Management	1	7/1/05	6 months
Core Team	Review deliverables, assure quality	Project Management	4	9/1/05	4 months
Content Developer	Create framework content	Research and web writing skills	1	9/1/05	4 months
Web Designer	Design web-based performance mgmt tool	Web design, web writing skills	1	10/1/05	3 months
Web Developer	Build the web-based performance management tool	Web development	1	11/1/05	2 months
Review Team	Evaluate deliverables, promote use	Project Management experience	20	11/1/05	2 months

Staff Assigned to Roles

The following is a detailed breakdown of the actual staff assigned to the project role, the amount of Full Time Equivalent (FTE) requested for the role, the actual FTE acquired, the labor rate and unit of the labor rate for the resource and the source from which the resource is recruited.

Role	Name	Requested FTE FY05-06	Acquired FTE FY05-06	Rate	Rate Unit	Source
Project Team
Project Manager	Name1 - Project Manager	1.00	1.00	$85	hour	DoIT - Systems Engineering Operations
Core Team	Name4	.10	.10	$70	hour	DoIT- Network Services
	Name5	.10	.10	$70	hour	DoIT – Enterprise Internet Services
	Name6	.10	.10	$70	hour	DoIT–Data Resource Management Technologies
Content Developer	Name6	.90	.90	$70	hour	DoIT–Data Resource Management Technologies
Web Designer	Name7	.05	.05	$75	hour	Academic Technology Solutions
Web Developer	tbd	.05	.00	$65	hour	Academic Technology Solutions
Review Team (20 reviewers)	Various Project Managers	.10	.10	$70	hour	See appendix for detail list
Total		2.40	2.35

Staff Resource Loading Chart

The following includes the estimated effort in Full Time Equivalent (FTE) days required by month for each staff resource assigned to the project.

	FY05-06    FTE in Days
Role	Number of Staff Required	July	Aug	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total
Project Manager	1	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	15.00	90.00
Core Team Members	4			4.50	4.50	4.50	4.50	18.00
Content Developer	1			13.50	13.50	13.50	13.50	54.00
Web Designer	1				3.50	1.50	1.50	6.50
Web Developer	1					5.00	5.00	10.00
Review Team	20					10.00	10.00	20.00
Total		15.00	15.00	33.00	36.50	49.50	49.50	198.50

Training Needs

The following are the detailed training needs to bring staff to a level of skill required for project execution.

Role/Staff Resource	Training Need	Timeframe Needed	Anticipated Cost	Suggested Vendor/Method
Content Developer – Name6	Writing For Web	By  10/1/05	$2000	Vendor - Information Mapping