The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Best Practices to Request and Coordinate Resources | PPP #84

Episode Date: August 23, 2021

Sharing tips on how to effectively request, coordinate, care for and release resources for Incident Management Teams (IMT), Project Teams and more!

Hello, everybody. Welcome to People Process Progress, Episode 84, Foundation for Requesting Coordinate Resources. So we are on target, if you've been listening in the past three episodes, with a good leader's intent, right? We have our task, our purpose, and our end state. We are developing those smart objectives, those specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-based objectives that we are going to help action the intent from our leader. We have created a usable, functional, organizational structure now. As we put together the Foundation for Request and Coordinate Resources, we'll begin to think about the people, the equipment, the supplies, facilities, transportation, and more that we will need to meet those objectives and bring them to life. But first, please silence your cell phones, hold all sidebar conversations to a minimum,

and we will get started with People Process Progress in 3, 2, 1. Hey, everybody. Thanks for listening to the show. Visiting peopleprocessprogress.com. Check us out on Instagram at People Process Progress, also Facebook, and connect on LinkedIn. So thanks again for coming back to People Process Progress, also Facebook, and connect on LinkedIn. So thanks again for coming back to People Process Progress episode 84, Request and Coordinate Resources. As your is the fourth of the foundational five things that I think teams, families, responders,

whomever can do in a pinch, or if you have time, if you keep these things in mind, if we get one, leader's intent, two, we're setting those smart objectives, three, we create some sort of working organizational structure, four, which we'll talk about today a little more in depth, we're going to request and coordinate resources to make all that other stuff happen, and then communication, which we'll do in the next episode. So what is a resource? Well, according to my excellent research skills from the Google and then Merriam-Webster.com, states that A of resource is a source of supply or support, colon, and, some sort of manager, some sort of someone that's pulling people together and stuff and equipment that they are usually in the plural, right? And we'll talk about single resources, which we kind of talked about in the org chart last in episode 83. But when you have experts, right, those can be kind of singular. But, you know, that's what

it is. It's the stuff that supports us and helps things happen. And so how else can we think about that? And I think one of how else can we think about that? And I think one of the best ways to think about what is a resource and more importantly, what resources do I need to support the team to meet these objectives, fill in the org chart, circle back to that leader's intent is using the kind and type

that the incident command system uses, right? And project managers do this, other businesses do this, but it's very prescribed system. And so the kind of resource in the incident command system and incident management is what is it, right? A nurse, a doctor, a car, a bulldozer, a fire engine. The type is what is its capability. And here's an illustration of that. So the kind of resource is a nurse, right? Which are in short supply these days, overworked. God bless all of you nurses out there. So there are many types of nurses.

The kind of profession is nurse. The type of nurse is emergency room nurse, oncology nurse, immunizations nurse, right? What's their specialty? What can they do? Nursing, in addition to the baseline of being a nurse, right, specializes like many other things. And if you think about for equipment, right, if you think of a bulldozer, you could have a bobcat that's a type of bull, that's a kind of bulldozer, but the type is it's a really small one versus those huge ones that move mountains, right? So that's kind of the mindset that incident management and incident command system folks

think about, but it totally applies to other businesses. If you can think about what is the resource that I need as the kind, and then what do I need it to do? What is the capability of that resource? That's the type. And so let's bring that to information technology. A programmer, right, is a kind of resource. What type of programmer are you? So many different languages,

so many different analysts, right? Same thing, analysts, project managers, use myself as an example, right? The kind of thing I am as a project manager. What type of project manager am I? Am I in the healthcare space? Am I a construction, right? That's a very specialized project manager from what I've seen from the work world out there. Same with engineering, right? Often the project managers they have doing construction or doing engineering work have that background as opposed to maybe kind of a generalist

that can go in and out and happens to work in a different field. So you all get the gist of it, but that's what we need to think about is what is this resource that I need and what is the capability I need? So what is it as a kind and capability as type? So now that we're thinking about the kind of resources that we think we need and the type, meaning the capability that they need, do we know how to request those, right? Do we know our company's procedures? Are there monetary limits? Do you have to be a certain position to be able to request those, right? Do we know our company's procedures? Are there monetary limits?

Do you have to be a certain position to be able to request resources or supplies, whether it's people or facilities or reserve things? Does your project team or your incident management team or whatever team you're in trying to get resources have their procedures? That's where we have to take that on and learn those. And they vary, right? Incident command, incident management, we work with logistics and operations. Operations says, I want to do this on and learn those. And they vary, right? Incident command, incident management, we work with logistics and operations. Operations says, I want to do this to meet the objectives. I want these people and this stuff and those kinds of things. Logistics says, yes or no, you can't do it. Meaning, yes, I can get it. No, I can't. Safety, you know, gives them guidelines. So there's a whole discussion there. And we need to have a similar conversation for projects and programs, right? All the key stakeholders, familiar term for anybody that's done any kind of level of project management or

study that need to be involved. We need to get the opinion, the feedback, the subject matter expertise from whoever can help us appropriately choose the kind and type of resources because one, we want to make sure we're efficient and safe, and two, they're not free, right? So we don't want to get the wrong stuff and cost money. Another thing is if you're in government and you're in a government department or your emergency management or something like that, you need to know your localities resources or your resource coordination procedures, right? How do you day-to-day order up a whole bunch of supplies versus how when you're doing a big project, is there a line item?

Is there, you know, reserve cost centers? Those kind of things that you need to use. And so that's where you have to do kind of your homework there. But what I want to also provide here is a tool that I learned doing emergency management in Virginia, which is a great system set up by Virginia. And it's using the acronym CSALT, C-S-A-L-T-T, which stands for capability, size, amount, location, type, and time. And whether I've been deployed in the field or in a nice building planning or doing projects or programs, that C SALT, those acronyms, that capability, size, amount, location, type, and time

really covers the key points of how you can request well, right? Because you need to put a good request in to make it easier for whatever company or person or purchasing or whoever you're going to put this request through to process it. And it'll save you time, not that you can't have corrections, but it's a really good thing. So let's go through the C-SALT acronym. Capability. What do you need the resource to do? Size. This requires a physical size descriptor, especially if you're getting a facility or a piece of equipment or supplies or a workspace. Probably not so with people. That's where you can get into some trouble. But the amount. How many do you need? How many do you think you need to fulfill

this function within your project team of this type of resource? Location, where should they show up to? And at what time and those kind of things, this resource rather. Where do you want this stuff sent to you? Is it mailed to you? Where do people report those kind of things? The type, what is it or the function? We talked about type, right?

What's the capability? So that's kind of tied into the capability above. But we can also, in this world of emergency management, it's very prescriptive. So if I order a strike team of these kind of specialists, it's already kind of set aside, so to speak. Imagine a bar scanner like a grocery store, but it's of response assets. They're already grouped together. They already know how they work together. That's kind of the type of a FEMA typing, kind of like that. But again, we touched on that. That's the capability of it, which is a little redundant from the first part. And then the time, right? When do you need the resource and for how long?

So especially for projects, we really need to know when we're going to ask hiring managers or supervisors that we would like your resource or a couple of resources to start on this project, this date, and for this long, and for this percentage of their time. So not just a blanket from this date to that date, but what's also very helpful in the project and program and product management world is what percentage of that person's time do we need? Because if it's just expertise and a couple meetings a week, maybe we need 25, 50% of their time. If it's we're putting in a whole new big program, then we might need them full-time dedicated to this thing. And similar for emergency management or incident management, we need them from this time to this time a little more blocked out. Because if you need someone to go on a deployment for an incident management team, they're there.

You're not getting 50% of the time where they're going to be like, oh, it's noon, I'm out, right? They're gonna be there. So that's a little bit different. But private sector kind of project management stuff, or even if it's the government sector project management, you'd know when you want those folks. So CSALT is a very helpful acronym to follow. Again, capability, size, amount, location, type, and time. And again, if you're

using these foundational five really quickly, you don't have all the forms, you're not doing the wall charts, you're just trying to get some stuff done. It's a very simple thing to put in an email or a text. And you don't have to type the acronym and then do it. Just remember those things, capability, size, amount, location, type, and time. So we're going to get all these resources, right? Whether it's people, expertise, or equipment, or supplies, or facilities, or food, could be any of those kind of things, right? And maybe probably other stuff that I'm not thinking of. What are we going to do with those and how are we going to track them? Well, for those familiar with the incident command system and incident management, it'll be twofold, right? Logistics section, the logistics folks,

like we spoke on Foundations Friday this past week, is key, right? Logistics section, the logistics folks, like we spoke on Foundations Friday this past week, is key, right? They're going to track the equipment, the facilities, the stuff that we give people to do their job. The resource unit in the planning section is going to track the people from they check in, they get all their stuff, they check out, tracking them the whole time. That's a big part of what I did on the incident management team. Pretty critical thing. So we know, as I mentioned in previous episodes, so we know where people are in case something bad happens or good. If we know how to tell them, come get your pizza or your sandwiches or your whatever. Right. But we need to account for that.

And as a project manager, right. And companies, we also need to know where people are working, what are the hours they're working, right. Especially if we're in a project time, we're close to go live or at go live, and we're going to feed people, you know, put something together. I've used Incident Command System forms for projects. It's great, especially the 204 work assignment. These people are going to be in these locations at these times, and it helps us deliver food. It helps us make sure the facilities they're in are good to go, right? We also need to budget for people, both, you know, the finance admin unit and the incident command system, or certainly project managers and program managers are tracking budget of people costs, right? And fees and FTs versus contractors and all that kind of stuff. So we're going to track all these

resources in a budget. How much hourly is a bulldozer operator plus the bulldozer? Well, I'll tell you, all those big fires that, you know, Godspeed to all the folks working them out west are expensive, right? That's an expertise to do all that equipment and heavy moving. And there's a lot of it out there working. So we need to be tracking that kind of stuff. And then, you know, to get really into the project management, this is where also, right, you're going to align those resources in your org chart or your work breakdown structure with which of these people are going to do what tasks and when and all that kind of stuff. So you can kind of see how we're pulling all this stuff together.

So most importantly for the people aspects of resource management, because resource management is effectively requesting them and knowing what you need and what they can do and then tracking them, giving stuff back if it's non-perishable, replenishing it, all that kind of stuff. But for the people stuff, we need to know meals, right? Are we budgeting in our project? Or certainly we are in the food unit

for an incident command system, incident management deployment. How are we going to feed people, right? How are we going to do it safely in whatever area we're in, cleanly now, right? Infection control is critical for food safety anyway, let alone during, you know, COVID times. So big challenges there. What facilities? Are the facilities we're going to send our people to legitimate, right?

That facility is a resource. Does it have the right power? The internet, which is critical these days, right? For folks that are working that way. Did they have a place for people to rack out or rest? Especially, you know, folks working out in the field. What's the infrastructure in the area like? You know, we send teams to places after tornadoes or hurricanes. And, you know, it can be dangerous down poles and lines and glass and breakables and all that kind of stuff.

So what is that like when we care for them? Biological. do we have port-a-johns or trailer bathrooms, showers for hygiene, all these kinds of things for deployment, less so for kind of, you know, private sector people working in their company's building. And now a lot of people are working at home. So really the infrastructure there is, does everybody at their home have the connectivity they need? Now that our internet, I can't imagine the traffic in the past 15, 18 months, how much higher it is from homes, right? Comcast and Verizon and other suppliers of internet,

probably spiking through the roof. Medical support, particularly in the field, do we have the folks on standby to care for our people? And whether you're in public safety, in an office, in a cube, you know, in the past year and a half, right, mental health. So not just medical for boo-boos and cuts and ankle twists or whatever, but have we also considered having counselors on standby? I know we have employee assistance programs. We have medical unit leaders, right, on incident management teams. But have we looped in counselors like we should, right?

More folks coming off the line or, you know, folks burnout at work with everything going on with mandates. So people are at a precipice of do I stay at this job? Do I do what they tell me I have to do? Just all these different things and just burnout, right? Healthcare workers, public safety, the volume of work they've had to put up with and they have, and thank God for them, is critically important. So as we work with all these people resources, the most important thing, right? The first word on this show for a reason, we need to make sure in all these aspects of food and facilities and infrastructure and biological and medical and mental health that we're accounting

for those kind of things, whether we're in an office or in the middle of the woods out west or in the all hazards world in a city. So how can we optimize our resources time? Well, for kind of in the field folks, we can, you know, do that with that really functional organization and good tactics and those kinds of things. And for projects in general, really have meetings be worth it, right? Don't have meetings that could have been an email as much as possible. Focus on the area of responsibility for those folks. Give them the broader picture for sure. But what do folks really need to know to be successful in their day-to-day? And then when do we know how to release resources, right? What are the trigger points that we can set to say, if we reach this goal, then we can ramp down, you know, these people, you know, in the

project management world, that's milestones. So maybe certain experts get us to a milestone, then it can be released off the project. As we're tracking those costs, right? If we hit a threshold, we know maybe we're not going to spend any more on this or that resource, whether it's people or equipment or facilities, those kind of things. Have we achieved the appropriate level of knowledge transfer, right? Did we get a good handoff if we're operational on an incident management team and then we're good to go? Did we let those people rest like they should and monitor their stress buildup? Are they super stressed out? Maybe they were on a building collapse, right? Or something bad for a while, or they were just heads down 13, 14 hours a day, you know, working to go live. And that's stressful, right? You're tired, you're away from your family, you're doing all this kind of work.

So we need to know that we're not only going to let them go home, but before we do, we're going to make sure they're right. We're going to check on them afterwards. So in closing, in this kind of short episode focused on foundation for request and coordinate resources, a few closing thoughts about resource coordination. Number one, people are a resource and they are and always will be our most important one. Number two, whether we're deploying or we're doing project management or whatever we're doing to request resources,

we should try ahead of time to scope things out and have an idea of what's available and what's not kind of ahead of time. So we kind of know and we're not as surprised. Now, that's not always possible, but if we can always kind of be looking at the kind of project we do. So as soon as we find out our leader's intent, we're getting our objectives going, we have kind of our roughed out org structure, kind of thinking about here's the kind and type of resources I'm pretty sure we need. Here's the space, here's the communications. And I'm pretty sure we have this in house, and we may or may not have that, right? Same thing with incident management teams, although they may have a bigger scope of, you know, they order things from all different kinds of companies.

Number three, let the objectives drive the organization, right? That also drives the resource, kinds, and types. If you notice, these are in order for a reason, right? Leaders give us that intent. We make smart objectives to meet the intent. We create an organization or the incident management world tactics that create an org a reason, right? Leaders give us that intent. We make smart objectives to meet the intent. We create an organization or the instant management world tactics that create an org chart, org structure to then meet those objectives. And now we got to get resources to fill in those boxes.

When it comes to resources, the fourth thing I have to share is always go back and remember number one, right? We're asking, we're doing metrics, just like I talked about in a previous episode. You know, metrics are important, but people are number one, most important. That's not altruistic. It's true, right? In this day and age, we've lost a lot of people over the past year and a half, two years, where folks are super stressed out. We always have to remember that person on the other side of the Zoom or out in the field or whatever is the most critical resource that we could ever ask for, track and care for, and then send back to their family or their loved ones or wherever they go afterwards safely. I thank you for checking out this podcast. I hope you are safe out there. Thanks so much for visiting the website, peopleprocessprogress.com.

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