How to manage a project with budget restraints?

In our Productivity Puzzle Whitepaper, we often talk about how successful projects are the key to a productive workforce. However, what do you do if the success of your project is challenged by budget restraints?  

Over the coming 12 months, nearly half of respondents who took part in our survey cited budget restraint as a challenge that would need to be addressed. A tale as old as time, budgets can overrun easily with projects when tackling the delicate balance of scope, quality, time and capability. 

More significantly, 40% cited that internal skill and capability was a foreseen challenge in the project. Even though organisations have put huge amounts of time and investment into enhancing capabilities, we foresee further issues and barriers to project success from lack of internal skill and capability. As a result, organisations are increasingly turning to services with specialised outsourced delivery to mitigate this. 

 At RPS, we know that these areas of concern can be addressed through outcome-based delivery focused work packages that have budgets aligned to each outcome. As shown in the following graph, there is still a clear mix of adoption of this approach across organisations, however we see real evidence of increased adoption. 

If you’re struggling with cost restraints, we’re here to let you know that it’s possible to complete projects on a tight budget. In this blog, we’ve outlined how you can effectively tackle the budget restraints to ensure the successful delivery of your next project:  

1. 1. Outsource your talent

3. Outsourcing is a great way to meet your needs and manage your project efficiently without the cost of additional staff. Considering that project management is a complex array of resources, expertise and planning, delivering a successful project that exceeds the customer’s expectations and fits the budget is not feasible for every company.  

If you lack the internal resources or in-house capabilities, you can use project management outsourcing to save costs, expand your talent pool and gain an extra set of hands by having the expertise and dedication of skilled individuals, thus making sure your project is not overlooked.  

At RPS, we utilise our extensive talent-pool to ensure that not only are they the right people for your project, but we also ensure they are the right cultural fit for your team too.  

1. 2. Use work packages 

3. As stated above, your budget restraints concerns can be resolved through outcome-based and delivery-focused work packages where budgets are aligned to any particular project outcome.  

A work package can help you map your project scope using a work breakdown structure (WBS). The main benefit of using work packages is that you can break a larger project into smaller, more manageable tasks. As a result, this allows you to assign work to multiple team members and set clear deadlines and budgets for various parts of the project. In addition, work packages can help project managers to assess the project performance, identity any risks and how to mitigate them, as well as create a more consistent schedule for the project delivery.  

We explore more of this in our Productivity Puzzle Whitepaper. If you’d like to download a copy of the whitepaper, click here or contact our team today for more details on how we can help your business improve its productivity.