Estimate Activity Resources

Estimates the team resources and the type and quantity of materials, equipment, and supplies each activity needs, producing resource requirements and the resource breakdown structure. It links the schedule to what it will actually take.

Process Group Planning Knowledge Area Project Resource Management

Estimate Activity Resources determines what each activity needs — people with which skills, and which materials and equipment, in what quantities. It produces resource requirements and the resource breakdown structure, and feeds both the schedule and the budget.

Estimate Activity Resources: key inputs and outputs — The key inputs feeding Estimate Activity Resources and the deliverables it produces — full ITTOs are listed below.

It is closely tied to duration and cost estimating: resource availability and productivity shape how long work takes and how much it costs. The process is revisited as the project evolves.

Common pitfalls. Estimating resources in isolation from durations and costs; assuming ideal availability and full productivity; and overlooking non-labor resources until they become a bottleneck.

Inputs, Tools & Techniques, and Outputs

Inputs

Project management plan
Project documents
Enterprise environmental factors
Organizational process assets

Tools & Techniques

Expert judgment
Bottom-up estimating
Analogous estimating
Parametric estimating
Data analysis
Project management information system
Meetings

Outputs

Resource requirements
Basis of estimates
Resource breakdown structure
Project documents updates