Lesson 4: R - Resources
Contents
Video
Resources
The third element of CAR is Resources. Teams fail for want of resources more often than they fail for want of effort or commitment. People, time, budget, tools, access - these are the inputs that enable output. Without them, even the clearest outcomes and the best plans will not produce results.
Part of a leader's job is to be a resource advocate for their team. That means understanding what your team needs, securing it where you can, and being honest when you cannot get it - so you can right-size the commitment accordingly.
Types of Resources
People
Do you have the right people, with the right skills, in the right amounts to do the work you are committing to? This is where many delivery failures start - teams take on work they do not have the capacity to complete, either because the scope was not well understood or because they were afraid to push back.
Honest capacity planning is a leadership responsibility. Do not commit to more than your team can deliver, and advocate clearly when your team is being asked to do too much.
Time
Calendar time and actual working time are not the same thing. Meetings, interruptions, context switching, and other obligations erode the time available for deep, focused work. When you are planning, account for this realistically - do not assume your team will have 40 hours of productive work per week per person. A lost day here, a few lost days there, and suddenly your timeline is off by weeks through nobody's specific fault.
Protecting your team's time - limiting unnecessary meetings, creating space for focused work, managing interruptions - is one of the highest-leverage things a leader can do for delivery.
Budget
Understand what budget is available for your team's work. If your plan requires resources that are not in the budget - contractors, tools, travel, training - identify that early and make the case for it explicitly. Discovering mid-project that the money is not there is avoidable with upfront planning.
Tools and Access
Are there systems, data, or approvals that your team needs but does not have? Identify these dependencies early. Access issues that seem minor when discovered during planning can become significant blockers once the work is underway.
When Resources Are Constrained
Resources are almost always constrained to some degree. The leadership skill is not in always getting everything you need - it is in making honest tradeoffs when you cannot.
If the resources are not sufficient for the full scope, something has to give: the timeline, the scope, or the quality bar. The leader's job is to surface that tradeoff explicitly - to the team and to stakeholders - rather than absorbing it silently and hoping the team will somehow find a way. They usually cannot, and the consequence is burnout, missed commitments, or both.