Consultancy operations
A resource planning checklist for growing consultancies.
A practical review for connecting client commitments, sales demand, skills, availability, utilization, and project economics.
Keep the people and demand records usable.
- ✓Working schedules, leave, holidays, and locations are current.
- ✓Roles, skills, and proficiency records reflect delivery reality.
- ✓Active projects have owners, dates, remaining effort, and health.
- ✓Prospective work has probability, timing, roles, and skill needs.
- ✓Internal, sales, leadership, and support commitments are visible.
Resolve exceptions across the portfolio.
- ✓New overload and idle-capacity periods
- ✓Unfilled requests and single-person dependencies
- ✓Work that moved or changed estimate
- ✓Utilization and billable-time exceptions
- ✓Budget, margin, and retainer-capacity concerns
- ✓Hiring or contractor decisions that need lead time
Compare forecast and actual patterns.
Review where demand arrived late, capacity assumptions were inaccurate, projects consumed more effort than expected, or specialist gaps repeated. Use those patterns to improve sales timing, pricing, hiring, and project setup.
Make each decision accountable.
Name who maintains people data, who confirms project demand, who resolves conflicts, who approves commercial changes, and who reviews the portfolio. A shared tool does not replace clear responsibility.