We’re living through a strange disconnect in resource management. Organizations have invested heavily in project management tools—Jira, Asana, Monday, Smartsheet—yet the most fundamental question still gets answered with guesswork:
“Who’s available to take on this project next month?”
We’ve digitized the tasks, but we haven’t solved the chaos. And here’s the kicker: research shows that only 27% of work actually aligns to strategic objectives. The problem isn’t a lack of tools. It’s a lack of connection.
The Root of the Resource Management Blindspot
According to recent PM Solutions research, the primary failure point in resource management today isn’t identifying resources—it’s integrating the data. Organizations are drowning in disconnected information, where critical capacity data lives in silos across multiple systems.
But data silos are just the technical problem. There is also a second issue that stems more from work environments: different teams work in fundamentally different ways. Some are agile, others follow waterfall methodologies, and many fall somewhere in between with hybrid approaches. This fragmentation, which is rooted in personnel and culture, creates an additional translation problem that goes beyond simple data integration.
How do you compare capacity across teams that measure work in completely different ways?
Without the ability to both integrate scattered data and translate across different ways of working, leaders are left guessing. The 2025 State of Resource Management Report confirms this, identifying capacity planning as the single biggest challenge facing leaders this year.
The Strategic Cost
When visibility fails, the consequences ripple far beyond missed deadlines. Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report reveals that disengagement contributed to a staggering $438 billion loss in productivity in 2024, with manager engagement dropping to just 27%. But burnout is only a symptom. Bad resource allocation is the core problem.
This connects directly to strategy execution. Only 20% of executives feel confident that resources are properly allocated to execute strategy—which directly contributes to why only 27% of work aligns to strategic objectives in the first place. It’s a vicious cycle: poor visibility leads to poor allocation, which leads to strategic misalignment, which undermines confidence in the entire planning process.
This is no longer just an operational headache. It’s a board-level issue that threatens both strategic opportunities and organizational health.
How AI Changes the Game
Contextual Understanding Across Systems
AI-powered solutions like Planview Anvi connect disparate tools through an integrated data fabric with 60+ connectors, creating what resource managers have long dreamed of: a single pane of glass. AI does the heavy lifting of normalization, so managers don’t have to toggle between ten different dashboards to understand team capacity.
Organizations reap even more benefits when this is done in a way that doesn’t add another tool to an already crowded stack. AI that can embed within existing workflows creates a unified view without adding disconnection. More importantly, it surfaces hidden risks and dependencies that would otherwise remain invisible until they cause problems.
Predictive Capacity Planning
McKinsey’s State of AI research highlights a critical shift: high-performing organizations aren’t using AI just to automate tasks—they’re redesigning workflows entirely. In resource management, this means AI can forecast bottlenecks before they happen, shifting the entire discipline from reactive firefighting to predictive strategy.
Instead of discovering you’re three people short halfway through a project, AI identifies the constraint during planning, giving leaders time to make informed decisions about priorities, timelines, or resource acquisition.
Skill-Based Resource Optimization
A key challenge that resonates across industries is organizations struggling to identify the skills they already have. According to research on the AI skills gap, companies are sitting on hidden talent but lack the visibility to leverage it effectively.
AI solves this by moving beyond rigid job titles to capability-based matching. It can scan project histories, certifications, and work patterns to find the best person for a job—even if they sit in a different department or haven’t done that exact work before. It matches capabilities to needs, uncovering talent that traditional resource databases would miss.
From Administration to Strategy
The future of resource management isn’t about better utilization reports or more sophisticated Gantt charts. It’s about treating resource management as a core part of strategy execution, not an afterthought.
AI enables realistic commitments and strategic agility by giving leaders something they’ve rarely had: data confidence. With accurate, predictive visibility into capacity, leaders can say “no” or “not yet” to new work, protecting the integrity of the strategy they’ve already committed to. That’s not just efficient resource management—it’s strategic discipline.
The organizations that thrive in the next decade won’t be those that squeeze every percentage point out of utilization rates. They’ll be the ones that use AI to connect strategy to delivery, ensuring the right people work on the right things at the right time.
Ready to see how AI can transform your resource management?
Watch the Planview Anvi demo to discover how conversational AI helps you make more confident, smart, and fast strategic decisions.
