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.
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
How This Process Connects
Every process hands artifacts to other processes. Follow the flow of this one:
Where its inputs come from
- Develop Project Management Planproduces: Project management plan
More in Project Resource Management
In the Domains & Principles View
The PMBOK® Guide frames this work through performance domains and principles:
In the Eighth Edition
This process describes the framework as set out in the Sixth and Seventh Editions. The Eighth Edition reorganized it into 6 principles, 7 performance domains and 40 processes.