Allocation of Scarce Resources

Within an organization there are going to be times when resources needed to complete a task are scarce or limited. Whether it is a part needed to complete production, the information available on a new development or even the time availability of employees when organizing the resources necessary there needs to be a plan in place. Having a plan in place for the acquisition, allocation and application of resources will help in making sure that scarce resources are used in the most effective and efficient way possible.

I was on the board for a local business association that organizes community events for our small town. Every year we do an event on a particular weekend in September. Last year our community had the opportunity to host a regional event that was looking for a new permanent home and thought our community might be a good fit. The event just happened to be the same weekend as our previously planned event. Being a small community we had limited resources on volunteers, vendors and locations to work with. Wanting both events to be as successful as possible the boards from both events got together to collaborate on how we could support each other to make both events work. We ended up coordinating our schedules so that activities did not compete but rather complimented each other. We structured our schedules in such a way that the need for volunteers was high at one event while lower at another and vice versa. Vendors were shared between events by using common locations for the available resources. The collaboration between the two boards and the effective organization of our limited resources worked out great for both parties and ended up saving each one in the end.