To understand how companies are coping with skills shortages, The Analyst Syndicate partnered on a RM research project with ProSymmetry, a strategic portfolio management (SPM) and resource management solution software. We surveyed over 100 corporate, government, audit, consulting, and IT professionals who rely on effective resource management for the success of their projects. All survey participants were involved in a project within 18 months prior to the survey.

In this report, we are highlighting three major findings:

1. There is an ongoing trend toward the centralization of project-related resource management
2. There is a clear demand for greater focus on skills management, and the HR department is increasingly involved in project resource management for that reason
3. Resource managers are reliant on technology to align people and their skills to demand from project and business leaders

To manage through an ongoing environment of skill and labor shortages requires identifying and forecasting skill needs and prioritizing how they are gained, either through hiring, upskilling, cross-skilling, or acquiring another business. This cannot be done effectively in mid-to-large organizations without a degree of centralization.