Our exclusive survey reveals dated tools, disjointed data, and doubtful colleagues are top blockers of your success. Here’s how to handle them, and more.
We asked you and you told us. When it comes to resource management, your biggest project blockers are outdated processes and siloed teams.
Throw in people problems – from low management buy-in to change resistance from your teams – and it’s clear many of you face an uphill battle to unlock the benefits of effective resource management in your business.
It’s frustrating for us to hear, so it must be soul-crushing for you. Despite resource management being mission-critical for modern businesses, organizations are held back by old habits and status quo thinking. And that’s getting in the way of efficiency, capacity planning, and project outcomes.
But don’t despair. We’ve got advice to help you overcome the key blockers: from manual processes and change-resistant colleagues, to low visibility and even lower leadership buy-in. Let’s get this sorted for you.
When we ran our survey, over 100 resource managers listed the following as the biggests roadblocks to effective resource management in their contexts – spanning a range of sectors, from IT services, to finance, healthcare, and manufacturing:
Blocker #1 – Outdated tools and manual processes – 42%
Blocker #2. Lack of visibility into resource availability – 32%
Blocker #3 – Siloed departments – 31%
Blocker #4 – Decentralized resource management processes – 25%
Blocker #5 – Lack of support from company leadership – 22%
Blocker #6 – Resistance to resource management from the wider team – 22%
Want to learn about how we gathered our data and who we surveyed? Download the full report ➡️
42% of resource managers say outdated tools and manual processes are their biggest challenge. Sometimes you don’t have access to the tools you need to manage resources properly. You may be using free tools before investing in a dedicated paid platform. Or perhaps you don’t even know better tools exist? Whatever the reason, two in five of you are stymied by unfit-for-purpose tools and systems. (We can help you with that ➡️).
Chaotic and out of control.
Spreadsheets. Kanban boards. Manual updates. Ad-hoc meetings. Email threads. You seem to spend more time updating spreadsheets than actually managing projects. Your data confidence is at rock bottom, so your decisions feel dubious. And the moment something changes (which it always does), the whole thing unravels.
Manual processes are slow, error-prone, and reactive. They make it harder to forecast accurately, respond quickly to change, or optimize resources accurately. The knock-on effects can be devastating to your bottom line and business overall – from poor delivery outcomes and dissatisfied clients, to overworked staff or staffing overspend.
It’s time to rethink how your tools are supporting you. Many teams start out relying on spreadsheets and scattered calendars because they’re familiar or free. But, as you grow, these stopgap solutions create more confusion than clarity.
A resource management platform helps eradicate manual work and data doubts. You get a single source of truth – your people, your projects, timelines, and budgets all in one place. And business leaders get an overview of how resourcing decisions impact business outcomes, including who to recruit and how to grow.
32% say limited visibility into who’s available is their key project blocker. This issue is linked to poor resource management tools. Spreadsheets simply don’t give you the at-a-glance insights that you need to make good decisions – like skills, capacity, and availability.
Unclear and time-consuming.
You’re chasing updates, second-guessing who’s free, or assigning work based on guesswork. Hours wasted in spreadsheets or Slack just to find out who can take on what – only to learn someone’s already overloaded. Back to the drawing board.
Without visibility into resource availability – and skills, and costs, and workload – your resource allocations won’t be as accurate as they should be. Perhaps a skills mismatch here, an accidental double-booking there. This puts project outcomes and staff satisfaction at risk, with higher-than-necessary project delays, workload imbalances, and overspend.
If you’re just starting to improve how your business manages resources, the first step is to get a clearer picture of who’s available and when, and that doesn’t need to be complicated. A tool like Runn shows real-time availability, updates capacity automatically, and helps you search by skill to assign the right people at the right time – without the spreadsheet scramble.
31% of respondents said siloed teams were a top issue. That’s when each department has its own resources and data – and they keep them to themselves. It’s a symptom of legacy structures that weren’t designed with resource efficiency in mind. Or maybe just an ingrained "us vs them" attitude.
Disjointed and divisive.
Siloed teams create a range of issues. Maybe they manifest in ring-fenced resources that only one team has access to. Or as siloed data, which means leaders can’t get the organization-wide insights they need to make decisions. Either way, it spells trouble for strategy and scheduling, as it usually results in misalignment and missed opportunities.
Businesses reap higher benefits from resource management when they have access to bigger talent pools. You’re more likely to find the right skills and spare capacity when there are more people to pick from. So you’ve got a better chance of optimizing utilization, reducing project delays, and delivering your best work for clients.
Siloed data is equally damaging. Leaders can’t see the full picture – like what skills are missing and whether they can meet demand. That makes workforce planning impossible, which means staff shortages or capacity issues never get solved.
Start by getting leadership on board with a shared vision. We know – it's easier said than done. But the key is making the operational and strategic benefits clear: better capacity planning, faster delivery, and smarter use of skills.
With leadership support, communicate that vision across teams. You may need to reframe the narrative. It’s not about losing control of team members – it’s about gaining access to a broader talent pool.
Finally, centralize your resources, data, and processes using a shared platform like Runn. Introduce interlock meetings and reports to share information and keep everyone in the loop.
25% say fragmented processes are a key issue. It could just be a growing pain – team processes evolve independently to meet a need, but there’s no central coordination yet. Or it could be more ingrained, due to departmental silos. Whatever the reason, disjointed processes can really hinder progress.
Inconsistent and inefficient.
One team uses spreadsheets, one uses Trello. One team’s processes are so informal it’s frightening, while another are so bureaucratic they can barely move. You try to work cross-departmentally but you feel like you’re speaking a different language. And although best practices exist, they’re hidden in silos.
When every team manages resources differently, it’s hard to get a clear, company-wide picture. You can’t confidently forecast demand, allocate people efficiently, or spot skills gaps because the data just doesn’t line up. Plus, it’s hard to prioritize resources for the most important projects because different teams follow different rules. As a result, you’ll never optimize your resourcing.
You could start by mapping how teams are currently managing resources and cherry-picking the best processes to roll out to the whole organization. Or you could look to resource management experts – like Runn or the RMI – to find industry best practice. Either way, you’ll need processes for project prioritization, resource (and change) requests, and approvals.
You’ll also need someone to oversee governance – that just means who manages and updates the processes to keep them fit for purpose and strategically aligned. In smaller organizations, that could be a single resource manager. In larger ones, a Resource Management Office (RMO) can drive consistency, adoption, and best practice.
22% are blocked by leadership resistance. Resource management is a relatively new discipline compared to more familiar functions like HR, finance, and IT. And that means it often has to overcome awareness issues, indifference, and even skepticism.
Like an uphill battle.
You know your business would be more profitable, efficient, and in-demand if you could only get your resource management right. But you can’t get the budget or buy-in to make the change. Leadership sees resource management as a nice-to-have rather than a strategic priority.
Without exec sponsorship, resource management lacks teeth. There’s no top-down advocacy to help overcome resistance and facilitate change. Plus, lack of budget could result in poor staffing and systems, which undermines any initiative’s impact. The whole process becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy – no one thought it could work and, through their lack of buy-in, they’re proved right.
When introducing resource management, your success or failure rests on your business case. That’s why we have so many resources on this (see below). It all starts with listening to business challenges, so you can position RM as the solution.
After that, you can draw on RMI calculations to support the strategic case with facts and figures.
Other savvy moves include rolling out resource management to a single team as proof of concept, using their results to strengthen your case for organization-wide adoption, and drawing on that team as internal advocates to champion your initiative. You’ve got this!
22% said internal resistance makes resource management harder than it should be. We’re not talking senior leaders here but department heads, team managers, and individual colleagues. They may not have the influence to halt initiatives, but fear of change can certainly make processes harder to implement.
Forgivable but frustrating.
People don’t "get" what you’re trying to achieve, and whispered rumours start to circulate. Overworked managers think it’s one more thing to add to their to-do list and their best people are being "stolen". While team members fear surveillance and even redundancies. Between the sighs, silence, or vocal pushback, you sometimes feel like public enemy number one.
We hate to say it. But without broader team buy-in, your best-laid plans are pretty much doomed. Adoption of new tools and processes will be patchy. Data collection and completeness will be patchy. Team cohesion will be eroded. And leadership will start to take notice. You’ll end up back where you started – just with even more resistance to future initiatives.
Change is hard and people are tired, so empathy is the way to win hearts and minds. You need to start by understanding team concerns and pain points. From here, you can show them how RM will help, not hinder. And reassure them that layoffs and increased workload are actually the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve.
Find your firestarters – people who are on board and eager to trial new initiatives – to trial software and processes, and use them for peer-to-peer advocacy. Counter rumours and disinformation with transparency. Hold office hours and "Ask Me Anything" sessions, and share case studies of RM success.
Want to learn more from your peers in resource management? We surveyed over 100 resource management professionals to get a pulse on the sector, asking them about:
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