Demand
Project, outcome, role, skills, proficiency, dates, effort, priority, and confidence.
Resource planning guide
A practical guide to resource planning.
Build a repeatable way to connect project demand, people, availability, skills, and allocation decisions across a growing organization.
Resource planning turns delivery demand into accountable people decisions.
A useful resource plan shows what work needs, what capacity is genuinely available, which commitments compete, and who owns each unresolved gap. It complements the project plan rather than replacing it.
- ✓Define demand before selecting a person.
- ✓Use dated availability rather than a static headcount.
- ✓Keep requested, tentative, and confirmed commitments distinct.
- ✓Record the reason and owner for each material trade-off.
Keep demand and supply current enough to support a decision.
Supply
Person, role, skills, schedule, leave, internal responsibilities, and existing allocations.
Constraints
Dependencies, location or timezone needs, commercial limits, continuity, and required approvals.
Review exceptions and make one clear decision at a time.
- 1Confirm material changes to project demand.
- 2Refresh schedules, leave, and non-project commitments.
- 3Find overload, idle periods, and unfilled role or skill demand.
- 4Compare feasible candidates and scenarios.
- 5Approve, decline, defer, split, or escalate each exception.
- 6Record the decision, effective dates, and next review.
Agree who maintains the evidence and who resolves conflicts.
Project owners should keep demand and timing current. People or resource owners should maintain availability and capability information. An accountable leader should resolve cross-project priority conflicts.