How to handle resource management in Jira and don’t go berserk

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We know that managers of projects or resources are busy people, so we just give you a quick answer - use timelines. 

Using any timeline view, you already ease the way you see your team members, their tasks, and the time they have to accomplish the tasks. So, you can manage your team resources wisely so that no one is inundated with tasks and prioritize projects depending on their deadlines.

But if you want to go even further and are full of ambition, we share some tips on using a timeline view by the example of using our app Calendar for Jira.

People first

No matter how important a project is, it’s impossible to succeed if there is no one to finish the job. Logging time for rest is crucial to maintaining human resources’ creativity and eagerness to accomplish tasks. 

In the Calendar, we have a special time structure called events. Usually, they are used for planning meetings with customers or weekly team meetings. 

An event can be a one-time thing or a regular one, and its periodicity can be flexible. So, we recommend using events not only for meetings but for lunchtime and breaks for your team. You can set the same time for the whole team, or each team member can have their timetable.   

As soon as your employees stop missing their lunch, their productivity grows enormously high.  

Save time on routine 

Assigning and especially reassigning tasks takes time because you have to open each issue to make it happen. But using timeline view, you can simply drag and drop tasks from one team member to another if someone took a sick day or there was a change of plans.

If you have new issues in a project, it’s not necessarily to assign them immediately. All the unassigned issues are on a board on your right, waiting for you to drag them to a perfect doer. 

 

Combine several projects in one timeline

If you have several teams and each team has a separate project, but you, as a manager, want to see it all in one place, it’s possible. 

You can create a calendar with both projects, but each team won’t be confused by the other team’s issues. To make the work smooth you use the original timeline view and see both projects. At the same time both teams use filters to hide irrelevant issues and projects.

Or, if you have to share your recourse between projects, you can create one timeline view for all people who are involved in different projects. In this case, you need to make the view for these employees only, not for their teams, using filters. In this case, you can manage a load of your employees more accurately and don’t let them burn out.  

Use color code

We think colors are essential if you want to make a timetable clear and easy to get.

Set different colors for issues depending on their priority, highlight meetings with clients, separate tasks from different projects. Use any possibility to make the information clear from the first glance for everyone. 

In The Calendar for Jira, you can set any color code you want for almost anything you want. 

 

It’s obvious that you can highlight issues by their priority and type of project. But have you thought about using a color code for planning vacations, business trips, and training?

The calendar shows employees' loads and absences in advance, so, there shouldn't be any surprises such as, the main developer is absent in the middle of a project.  

Set an alarm

It’s easy to forget something, we know this. Even important things can slip from our minds.  

Life at work can be very chaotic: you forget to eat, sing a happy birthday song to your colleague... or send a report on time and add some new data to a presentation before a meeting.  Especially if these tasks are not your duties, you need to be sure that someone will accomplish them on time.  

We use Reminder for such things, it integrates fully with Calendar for Jira. You can set a reminder for your purposes or for a task's assignee, if the task should be done by a specific time. 

To sum up, we want to say that the key to success in resource or project managing is a clear mind. Don’t waste your time and energy on routine and obscure vision of a timetable. Let Calendar for Jira make it smooth so you can do your job.