I understand that a firm will have target and actual utilization rates for both the organization and for technical staff, and I understand how to calculate utilization rate. However, when a question presents a list of teams or individuals and their utilization rates and says to select which one has enough availability for a given project, I’m unclear on how to determine which has enough time to be the correct answer. The first practice exam in the PjM course has a question like this.
For example, if the team has a 60% utilization rate and a 75% target, I see that they are below target, so I should consider this as a potential correct answer. But I wouldn’t think they’re free to take on a new project full time, because they’re not at a 0% utilization rate. Even if it’s 3 people and we need 90 hours/wk (75% of their total time), they don’t have 90 hrs left because they’re already 60% billable – they only have 48 hrs available.
For the purposes of the question, how can a team that has anything other than a 0% utilization rate take on a new project of any size full time?
@coachpierceallston @coachbriannakeller
Hi @sophia.cain!
Thanks for posting your question on utilization rates. I’ll give your post a stab. In your example, you cite that a team is at 60% utilization, but there is a firm target of 75%. You are correct that the team is currently being ‘under utilized’, and we would want them to take on more work to get closer to the 75% ‘target’ utilization. As a reminder, 75% utilization is a target in this scenario, but not the ceiling. ‘Full-time’ should be considered 40 hours/week.
I see a couple ways of answering the question. First would be that the team can be utilized on other project(s) and do not have to stick to one project ‘full time’, which is considered 40 hours a week (which they sounds like they are not hitting with a 60% utilization). So a team that is being under utilized is still a candidate to take on new work, even if it is not full time (unless the prompt/question is asking specifically for full-time persons).
Another way to answer this would be to shuffle around staffing on the project within the firm. Say the team is 5 people large, and they are being utilized at 60%. The solution could be to shrink the team to 3 people to hit ‘100%’ utilization and the 2 other team members could go ‘full time’ to another project. But this seems to go beyond the scope of your example that you have laid out.
I understand that you posted this example to talk generally about this topic, and I hope that I was able to offer some insight on two possible avenues to approach this. Don’t hesitate to reach out to support@blackspectacles.com ,or reply to this comment if you have any further questions!
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