There was many discussion on this topic. I heard so many times complaines whenever I used word "resources", when I were talking about group of people. And, as I repeated it many times, it was not about disrespecting someone or treat him like a thing. No, it's all about terminology.
When we have personal conversation we are talking face to face, I'm Sebastian and you are eg John, you are developer and so am I. If there is more of us and we are in the middle of conversation we are still individualities with ideas, we are team, we are friends, colleagues, co-workers, however you will call us. And of course there are still Sebastian and John somewhere there.
But...
If we will move on different field we won't be personalities any more. We will become data. Let's look how Google works, they're gathering stats about us and I'm almost sure when they're analysing those information there is no Sebastian there. There are only numbers. And am I mad? No, my activities on the internet are only a numbers for them, they don't treat it as person and I don't have any problem with it.
The same on many other fields, statistics, reports, maths or physics calculations, all of those treat me as a number. And there was no problem with calling us a 'number', why there is a problem with calling us a 'resource'?
If we are talking about project, one day we will need to talk about resources, because we cannot start any project without them. We need to have computers, desks, place, but also we need to have people who will carry out the project. But there is no place for Sebastian, John or any particular person in this equation, no, there is only place for resources. People who got this set of skills which are interesting for us, we can define them, even if we won't talk about particular person. We even cannot talk about any particular person, because there is no such a person. We can talk about this definition, which I mentioned above, about this set of skills, about this... numbers, which can describe those skills.
If we are talking about resource, it's not about person, but about set of skill which is required in the project. So do not take it personally when someone will use word 'resource' when he is talking about teams in project, because from project view point - teams (includes you and me) are a resources.
People are resource if CPU power or RAM are one. Especially in cloud environments, where for a given budget you can buy more CPU/RAM, or spend the same amount of money on developers, who will optimize the algorithms. And this is a difficult question. Not only about which one will cost less, but also how easy is it to hire more people and how much will the company loose by delaying development of new features. Because RAM and CPU are always available.
OdpowiedzUsuńWhen you are deciding what is needed to realize a project, people (set of the required skills) are resources.
UsuńOf course, there is also problem with managing resources and it that case you cannot treat people in the same way like the other resources. That's why there is another field of knowledge - human resource management. It's much more complex and definately harder than resource management, because, as you mentioned, CPUs are always avaliable. And CPU is not so complex, have no feelings and so on.
That's why I don't want to put equal sign between person and resource, it would be wrong. But treating set of skills of particular person as a resource is quite accurate. Don't you think?