Your designer looks free next Thursday, so you assign her to a new client project. Then another project manager points out that she is needed for a launch that week. Both plans looked reasonable on their own. Together, they ask for more time than she has.
This is where resource allocation gets difficult. The task is to decide who can take on the work, when they can do it, and what happens to their other commitments. That decision needs to hold up across every project the team is delivering.
What is resource allocation in project management?
Resource allocation is the process of assigning people, equipment or budget to project work. For agencies and other professional services teams, it usually means deciding how people’s time will be shared between projects.
Say a website project needs 40 hours of design work over two weeks. You need to find a designer with the right experience who can give the project those hours during that period. Having 40 spare hours somewhere in the next month does not solve the scheduling problem.
Allocation is different from a broad capacity estimate. Capacity tells you how much work the team could take on. Allocation names the people, projects and dates involved.
Who makes resource allocation decisions?
In a small team, project managers may arrange assignments directly with one another. As the number of projects grows, an operations lead, resource manager or PMO may coordinate requests across the business.
Whoever owns the process needs input from the people delivering the work. A calendar can show that someone has time available, but their team lead may know they need support with a particular task, or that another assignment is likely to run late.
What makes an assignment a good fit?
Availability matters, but it cannot be the only test. Before booking someone, ask:
- Do they have the skills and experience this work requires?
- Are they available on the days the project needs them?
- How much of their time is already committed elsewhere?
- Does the assignment fit the project’s time budget?
- Will they need review or support from someone whose time must also be booked?
That last question is easy to miss. Assigning a junior colleague to a task may be a sensible development opportunity. If a senior colleague needs to review each stage, account for that time as well. Otherwise, the plan understates the work required.
How to build a resource allocation plan
1. Start with the work, rather than the people
List the project’s main activities, the skills each one requires and when the work needs to happen. Estimate the time involved. You do not need a perfect task-by-task forecast, but you do need enough detail to distinguish a two-day design review from six weeks of development.
Mark estimates that are still uncertain. A tentative client start date should not look identical to a confirmed deadline when someone else reviews the schedule.
2. Look across the whole project portfolio
Check current assignments, upcoming work, leave and part-time schedules in one place. Pay attention to the specific dates you need. Someone who is lightly booked for the month could still be unavailable during the project’s critical week.
Include provisional bookings, but identify them as provisional. They may become confirmed work, and they should be visible when you consider taking on another project.
3. Match the work to available people
Find people with the required skills, then check their availability for the relevant period. If several people fit, compare the effect of each assignment on existing projects. The person with the most free time is not automatically the best choice, particularly if they would need extensive support or are needed for another project’s specialist work.
4. Resolve gaps before confirming dates
If nobody suitable is available, you have a planning decision to make. Could the work start later? Could it be divided? Is there time to bring in a contractor? Does the client need a revised delivery date?
A gap recorded in the plan is useful information. An impossible booking only delays the conversation.
5. Keep the plan current
Review near-term assignments regularly with project managers and team leads. When a project slips, check which later bookings it affects. A two-day delay may be manageable on the original project but cause a conflict if its specialist was due to move to another client on Monday.
Resource allocation example: two projects need the same developer
An agency is building a client website while maintaining another client’s application. The website needs a senior developer for four days next week. The application team has already booked that developer for two of those days to prepare a release.
The developer has three unbooked days that week, so neither project can have the time it requested without a change. The managers could move part of the website work, find another developer for the release, or adjust a deadline with the client. They should also check whether handing the work to another developer requires time from the senior developer for a briefing or review.
The point of the allocation plan is to make this conflict visible while those options are still available.
Common resource allocation problems
Each project has its own schedule
Separate plans make it hard to see a person’s total workload. A project manager may book someone who appears free because another team’s assignments are stored elsewhere. Bring bookings into a shared view before committing their time.
Availability is treated as a skill match
An open calendar does not tell you whether someone can complete a task independently. Record the skills your team uses to make assignments, and speak to team leads when the requirements are specialised or unclear.
Unconfirmed work is ignored
A proposed project can compete for the same people as confirmed work. Give tentative assignments a visible status. That lets managers discuss the likely demand without treating every sales opportunity as a firm booking.
Changes do not reach the resource plan
If a deadline moves in the project tool but nobody updates the assignment, the next project may be planned around time that is no longer free. Make allocation changes part of the same conversation as changes to scope and delivery dates.
When does resource allocation software become useful?
A spreadsheet can work when a few people share a small number of projects. It gets harder to maintain when several managers make bookings, people split their weeks between clients, and plans change frequently. Someone has to reconcile each update before the sheet reflects the team’s actual commitments.
With Teambook’s resource allocation software, managers can see assignments across projects, check availability and spot overbookings. Skills and other tags help narrow down who could take on the work. When plans change, bookings can be adjusted in the shared planner.
If competing requests are a regular part of your week, see how Teambook helps you allocate resources across projects.
