What is an FTE in Project Management
As a SAP Project Manager, you may have heard of an FTE resource. The term means Full Time Equivalent. When planning and estimating a project, for example, a SAP BW Project (SAP Business Warehouse Project), you will often run across this term, but what does it really mean and what is the impact on project execution?
From experience, I can tell you that assuming that 2 people, working 4 hours each on a project, say, developing an SAP BW InfoCube, one 4 hours in the morning and the other 4 hours in the afternoon, is not equivalent to 1 person working for 8 hours on the same task.
Why?
- Multi-tasking is evil:). There is a demonstrable loss in productivity when people mentally have to shift gears on complex mental tasks, such as designing and building a BW InfoCube.
- Communication Signal Loss. Unless the members of this FTE crew can convey 100% of what they were doing to each other during the task change-over (which also cost time), there will be a degradation of the information from one person to the next and an associated loss of productivity and quality of design.
- Student Syndrome Kicks In. When two people share a task responsibility, neither can be quite sure how much the other can or will get done.
- Fully Loaded Costs or FLC don't fully reflect the loss of productivity. Although the consulting company can more or less tell what the FLC rate is based on their known cost, they cannot reflect the loss of productivity and subsequent increase in task duration resulting from Multi-Tasking.
What can you do to mitigate the project risk inherent in using FTEs when planning and executing a SAP Project?
- Use Multi-Project Critical Chain Project Management.
- Use Certified and Experienced Project Resources
- Avoid outsourcing as it leads to huge losses in information.
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