Resource Planning
Matching the people and plant a portfolio needs against what it actually has, before commitments are made.
Workflow
- 01Demand Forecast
- 02Capacity Assessment
- 03Assignment
- 04Utilisation Tracking
- 05Reforecast
Why it matters
Projects are approved individually and resourced from a common pool. Without a view across the portfolio, the same specialist is committed to four projects and the fourth one finds out last.
- Capacity is the real constraint: Approving work the organisation cannot staff produces delay, not delivery.
- Key people are single points of failure: The scarce skills are usually known informally and never modelled.
- Utilisation cuts both ways: Too low is waste; consistently too high means no capacity to absorb anything, including the change programme.
The workflow
- 01
Demand forecast
What the approved and pipeline portfolio will need, by role and by period.
- 02
Capacity assessment
What exists — accounting for leave, part-time arrangements and business-as-usual load.
- 03
Assignment
Named people to named work, with the conflicts made visible rather than discovered.
- 04
Utilisation tracking
Actual against planned, by role and by person.
- 05
Reforecast
Revisited as projects move, because they always move.
Include business-as-usual load in capacity. A model that treats everyone as fully available to projects will always say there is room, and the people it commits are the ones already doing another job.
What you need in place
- A role and rate model: Consistent enough to plan and cost with.
- Real capacity, not headcount: Net of leave, part-time arrangements and operational duties.
- Visibility across the portfolio: One view, or each project optimises for itself.
- Timesheet discipline: Actuals are how the model gets corrected.
- Named scarce skills: Identified deliberately, with a succession or sourcing position.
- A reforecast cadence: Monthly is usually enough; never is common.
Questions to ask
01Constraint
Which roles is the portfolio actually constrained by?
Name them. The answer is rarely more than a handful of people.
02BAU load
Does the capacity model include the day job?
If not, the model will overcommit every time.
03Conflicts
How are competing claims on one person resolved?
By policy, or by whoever escalates loudest.
04Actuals
Do we know where time actually went?
Without it the plan cannot be corrected, only repeated.
05Utilisation
What target, and what does exceeding it mean?
Sustained high utilisation is not efficiency, it is fragility.
06Change capacity
Who is also committed to the change programme?
Usually the same people, and usually uncounted.
Metrics and KPIs to track
Utilisation
Actual against planned, by role.
Demand against capacity
By role and period, showing the gap ahead.
Overallocation
People committed beyond available capacity.
Key person concentration
Projects dependent on a single named individual.
Forecast accuracy
Planned resource need against actual consumption.
Alongside this