Learn the definition of resource planning, why it's important, and how to create your first resource plan.
Do you have lots of projects and people, and want to match them better?
It's time to start resource planning.
When done right, resource planning can provide the necessary visibility to maximize talent. A holistic approach is all you need.
Resource planning is the process of identifying the right people to work on a project. It then involves distributing tasks to team members based on their capacity, skill sets, and best fit for the work.
This is particularly important in resource-intensive organizations – like professional service businesses, consulting firms, internal IT departments – that rely on human expertise to generate results and revenue. Every resource contributes to the organization’s success – but they also come at a cost. They need to be used efficiently so that they are earning money rather than burning it.
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Resource planning typically happens at the beginning of a project or before starting new work. Its main goal is to determine:
It’s often part of project planning and feeds directly into the project schedule and budget. You want to plan far enough to make confident decisions, but not so far that you feel the future is fixed. For many teams, that’s a rolling view of the next four to twelve weeks for project allocations, plus a higher-level look at the next three to six months to spot hiring needs and pipeline risk.
It sounds simple: assign people, estimate time, move on. But if it were that easy, resource planning wouldn’t be one of the hardest parts of delivery.
In reality, there are more moving parts than meets the eye. You need to accommodate many things in your resource allocation plan, such as time off, seniority, cost, availability, skills, employee preferences, and the list goes on. Most teams revisit resource plans regularly as priorities shift, scopes change, and new work enters the pipeline.
On top of that, resource planning is not just about high-level numbers and schedules; it's about understanding the individuals behind the work, their strengths, and limitations, and ensuring their workloads are manageable, all while striving for project success.
💡In fact, at the stage of resource planning, resource or project managers get to test themselves on how well they know the people they're assigning to the project in question.
As Baker Tilly's former Director of Resource Management, Christine Robinson, pointed out in our webinar on resourcing best practices:
I'd say the first and the most integral and basic best practice as it relates to resource planning is really drilling down to the fundamental, which is the resources that are being managed are people, and so establishing that relationship with the people that are very talented, that are being aligned in different ways, and really understanding how they are motivated and what they aspire to, that's going to be the key to success across the board.
Resource planning is great for each project on its own. But sometimes, just knowing who’s available isn’t enough to meet all your needs.
If you’ve ever said “we should be able to handle this” and been wrong, capacity planning was probably missing from the picture.
That’s where capacity planning comes in. Instead of focusing on individual resources, it looks at how much work your organization can handle overall. It also checks if you have what it takes to meet your big-picture goals.
When you understand both resource and capacity planning – and how they differ –you can get a proper visibility into your resource pool and maximize talent.
This distinction is especially useful in fast-changing or Agile environments. While delivery plans may shift sprint to sprint, teams still need a clear understanding of overall capacity before committing to new work. Resource and capacity planning help teams adapt quickly without overloading people or overpromising to clients.
➡️ Read more: The Do’s & Don’ts of Resource Planning in Agile Organizations
You might be wondering if resource planning is only for big teams. Not really. Even a small team can run into the same issues – double-bookings, last-minute changes, or work landing with the wrong person – it just happens on a smaller scale. The difference is that smaller teams can often keep it in their heads… until they can’t.
Helping our customers do resource planning for years with our software, we could write a book on why resource planning is important and the ROI it can help organizations achieve. But to keep it short and simple, here are a few rock-solid reasons why it's essential to integrate resource planning into your project management process.
Developing a thorough resource plan before starting a project offers the following advantages:
Overall, resource planning is essential because it sets the foundation for successful project execution and overall organizational efficiency. These benefits aren’t just theoretical – they’re what help teams stay in control when timelines slip, scopes change, or new work arrives unexpectedly.
➡️ Further reading: 5 Powerful Benefits of Resource Planning for Any Organization
In discussing the benefits of resource planning project management, it can help to see the issues that you avoid when you do it well. These issues rarely appear overnight. They build gradually, as small compromises stack up and visibility disappears.
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When we talk about resource planning with potential customers, the word we hear most often is ‘chaos’. They're trying to manage multiple projects that are constantly changing. And without the right tools, techniques, and information, they always feel on the back foot.
As with most things in business – if you can't be proactive, you get stuck being reactive. And that's never the best approach.
This tension usually shows up as teams grow. More projects, more people, and more moving parts mean informal planning starts to break down. What worked with five projects rarely works with fifteen. What once felt manageable quickly turns into constant trade-offs and last-minute decisions.
There are a lot of problems that result from poor resource planning, or that make effective resource planning really difficult. But just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. In fact, it means it is even more important.
Because if you think things are crazy now, wait until your organization grows, or wins more projects, or opens another office. Then you’ll really know what chaos feels like! Here are the challenges you and your organization could be facing right now that double as the reasons to invest in resource planning.
Transparency is essential for effective resource management. You need to know who's available, what their skills are, if they're earmarked for other projects, and whether they're operating at capacity or have bandwidth for more work. Without this information at your fingertips, your project plans are a shot in the dark. This can mean last-minute changes to your best laid plans. And that undermines your ability to deliver desired project outcomes.
Resource planning is about assigning the right people to the right project at the right time. Without resource planning processes in place, you can't always do that. The risk is that you'll assign people with sub-optimal skills who aren't up to the task. Or the opposite – assign overqualified resources who cost more than you need to spend. Either way, your budget and project's success are at risk.
This challenge is about resources not being used to their full potential. For example, working on low-value projects or engaging in busy work that could be assigned to someone else. This means you're not getting the best out of the people you pay so handsomely for. It's like buying a Rolex to use as a paperweight. Not the best use of what you've got!
Ad hoc allocation is when there's no strategy behind how you allocate resources. You allocate at random with no analysis of skills needed, incoming demands, project goals, etc. If your business simply operates on a first-come-first-served basis – whereby the first person to ask for resources gets them – you could be undermining your project efficacy and profit margin. If there are multiple demands on your resource, you should be prioritizing your projects. This ensures optimal resource utilization – assigning your MVPs to projects that move the needle most for your business.
Your team doesn't spend 100% of their workday on projects. There's often a lot of admin – like meetings, emails – plus eating lunch and taking breaks. So you need a way to work out exactly how much time they DO have for projects. Overestimating resource capacity can lead to slippage in your schedule. Or overworked resources trying to catch up and reaching burnout.
➡️ Related: The Importance of Billing Accuracy for Services Businesses
Some organizations do try to track and plan resources but aren't using the right tools. We hear horror stories about spreadsheets and Google Docs that make our eyes water. Endless scrolling. Manual calculations. Best-guess allocation. This reduces your effectiveness in other areas of your PM responsibilities. A proper resource management tool lets you visualize resources, see availability at a glance, and simply drag-and-drop resources to allocate them. You can even match people to projects based on their skills and manage change in real time. This saves you time and makes it much easier to find the right people for your project.
This is related to the problem above. Sometimes your planning tools start out great. But as you grow, they grow unwieldy. More projects, more staff, more complexity. Otherwise-organized PMs find themselves in a constant state of reaction and unable to get ahead of their projects – thanks to formerly fit-for-purpose planning tools like spreadsheets. Using dedicated resource planning software makes life easier, so you can do what you need and get back to other work.
➡️ Related: Runn vs Spreadsheets – Which is Best for Resource Management?
The challenge of not being able to predict when to hire or fire is all too common. Without adequate resource and capacity planning, you might overestimate how much work your team can handle. To keep up, they might need to make some last-minute hires. This is never ideal, as you often pay over the odds to go through a recruitment agency and need to rush the onboarding process. Capacity and resource planning tools give managers better insight into capacity and recruitment needs, so they can be properly planned and managed.
➡️ Further reading: Staffing Smart – How to Identify Hiring Needs
Finally, let's not forget that 'resources' are people. They need to be handled with care and respect, or they can get disenchanted and leave. Losing staff is a risk in any business because replacing, onboarding, and training staff takes time and money. But talent turnover is a particularly big risk in professional service firms, where you can lose a client if they lose their key contact. Resource planning software can help you manage resources better – keeping team members at the right level of challenge, stimulation, and satisfaction. And, most importantly, avoiding burnout – one of the leading causes of talent turnover.
If you face one of the challenges above, it's time to revisit your resource planning approach.
➡️ Related: The Difference Between Reactive & Proactive Resourcing
If you're sold on the idea of resource planning, you're probably wondering where to start. At a very basic level, resource planning involves keeping a record of key information – like all resources’ skills and current availability – and making that available to everyone responsible for assigning people to projects. This helps managers make better-informed decisions about how to staff their projects – which delivers better client and business outcomes.
Importantly, this isn’t a one-off exercise. As projects progress and priorities change, resource plans need to be revisited and adjusted. Teams that treat resource planning as an ongoing process are far better equipped to respond to change without disruption.
Here are seven steps to get you going:
In order to plan effectively, you must have good knowledge of all the resources that are required within the project from the very beginning. Drawing from project requirements, you can get a good idea of all the resources and skills the project needs, and when they should step in. This will inform your company's hiring decisions and a resource plan, respectively. Mind that it’s important to be thorough in assessing what you need in order to be efficient.
➡️ Related: 8 Best Practices for Requirements Gathering in Project Management
The availability of resources is a critical aspect of project resource planning and management. It relates to the knowledge you have about what resources you can utilize, when, and under what conditions. Knowing your resource availability requires looking at each employee's allocations now, as well as days, weeks, and months ahead of time, to figure out the gaps when their time is not occupied.
If resources are available, you are allowed to use their time for the duration of your project. As a result, a typical resource availability matrix will include everyone's workload, as well as vacations and personal time off.
Sometimes that may be straightforward, but other times it may require more in-depth planning.
For example, your resource may be pre-booked to do something that is within a higher priority area of the business. Think if it's possible to adjust your schedule of work to focus on other aspects of your project in order to utilize your current resources while you wait.
It’s expected that for some assignments you won’t be able to find resources with the right capabilities. This happens all the time, and for that case, Runn has a feature you could use to create an allocation without adding the resource.
When you know you’ll need a certain type of resource but not the exact people you want to allocate, you can add placeholder resources - Graphic Designer, Project Manager. This lets you plan the project and estimate resource requirements and costs, even if you don’t have specific people in mind yet. It also helps flag resource constraints and recruitment needs in advance.
Further reading: What is a Resource Request Workflow & How to Improve it
Once you know what skills and capabilities you're missing based on the placeholders you created, it's recommended to start making a case for bringing in new roles or upskilling people who sit on the bench.
At its most basic level, a resource management plan is a standard resource management technique that ensures your project has the resourcing it requires.
Your plan includes identifying the resourcing that a specific task requires, acquiring that resource, and reallocating it once it’s no longer required. Here are the key elements of a resource management plan to set yourself up for success.
Without a plan, you may get to a stage of a project and realize you don’t have a resource you need, or it may be used elsewhere.
Managing your team is all about how you ensure team members remain as productive as possible without putting them on overdrive. It’s essential to consider the following concepts:
A proactive approach to managing your teams is vital to promote their wellbeing at work and get the most out of your staff.
As we've hinted at above, resource planning is much easier with the right tools. If you're struggling to manage resources using spreadsheets, then you might benefit from dedicated software for resource planning. If spreadsheets worked forever, teams wouldn’t still be searching for better tools.
Resource planning software helps solve those challenges we explored earlier. It takes the guesswork out of forecasting and the manual effort out of planning and managing resources. This means you can effectively manage multiple projects – and build a best-fit project team – every time. Even when priorities shift mid-project.
The right tools make it easier to adjust allocations, test different scenarios, and understand the impact of changes before they ripple through delivery, costs, or workloads. Without that visibility, teams are forced to react after problems surface.
Here's what some of our customers say about Runn capacity and resource planning software.
If you want to discover the benefits of Runn for yourself, sign up for a free trial today.
