Understanding centralized staffing models

A centralized staffing model requires a firm to have a solid identification of their resources, roles, skills, and certifications. Over time, resource managers learn who is skilled where, and there is a considerable amount of internal knowledge that builds up.

However, even resource managers take time off! When they do, replacing their skills is not easy! In larger firms, knowing who to assign a project to becomes difficult (if not totally untenable) without a solid foundation of data-driven tools.

Let's take a look at the characteristics (skills and certifications) for William Michaels. William can do a multitude of things for the firm, as we see in the following screenshot:

Figure 6.7 – Team member characteristics

William also works in two roles, with two different billing rates for customers, as illustrated in the following screenshot:

Figure 6.8 – Team member roles

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