Outsourcing Resource Plan
This is a practical guide to building a resource plan for an outsourcing project — the people and resources needed, when, and how they are allocated, adapted to the realities of outsourcing a function to an external provider.
What a Resource Plan is
A resource plan is the people and resources needed, when, and how they are allocated. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Resource Planning. On an outsourcing project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for an Outsourcing project
Outsourcing projects live or die on outsourcing a function to an external provider. A well-built resource plan gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how outsourcing projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Roles and skills needed
- Allocation over time
- Capacity vs demand
- Resource calendar
Outsourcing-specific considerations
Tailor the resource plan to the risks that most often derail outsourcing projects:
- Knowledge transfer
- Service-level definition
- People impact
Example
On a real outsourcing project, the resource plan would be shaped by outsourcing a function to an external provider. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — knowledge transfer, service-level definition, people impact — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.