Resource planning for small agencies
Published
Short answer
Resource planning in a small agency comes down to three questions every week: who is working on what, who has free capacity, and have we said yes to more than we can do? A timeline per person with projects, time off and public holidays is enough, updated when a proposal goes out and when a contract is signed.
What is resource planning?
Resource planning is spreading people's time across projects, ahead of time. In a large consultancy it's a role of its own. In an agency of five to twenty people it's usually done by the founder, in their head or a spreadsheet, and that works until two big projects start the same week.
A good plan answers:
- Who works on what next week? So everyone knows what to start on Monday.
- Who has time? So you know whether you can say yes to the new job, and when it can start.
- Is anyone overbooked? So you can move work before it turns into overtime and delays.
Why the spreadsheet stops working
A spreadsheet is free and flexible, but it has three weaknesses that get worse as you grow:
- It lags. It's updated when someone remembers, not when a project changes.
- Time off and holidays are missing. A week with two public holidays looks as full as any other week.
- It doesn't know what's been sold. A proposal that's out but not signed isn't in the plan, until it's suddenly a project starting tomorrow.
A simple method in four steps
1. Start with capacity
Each person has a capacity per week. Take away vacation, time off and public holidays. Someone on 40 hours in a week with a public holiday doesn't have 40 hours.
2. Book whole days or hours per day
Don't plan in quarter hours. "Sarah, three days on the website next week" is enough. The plan shows direction; it doesn't replace time tracking.
3. Include what's coming in
When a proposal or contract goes out, add it as a tentative booking. Then you see what happens to capacity if the client says yes, before they say yes.
4. Look at the plan every week
Ten minutes in the weekly meeting is enough. Is anyone over 100 percent? Under 50? Is a project about to start with nobody on it?
Subtract time off before you book the week
- Contracted
- 40 h
- Less holiday
- −8 h
- Available
- 32 h
How the available hours are booked
- Confirmed24 h
- Tentative8 h
- Still unbooked0 h
Planned versus actual
The plan is far more useful when you can compare it with what was actually logged. If a project keeps taking more time than planned, the estimate was too low or the scope has grown. That's worth knowing before the next proposal, not after.
How Pledge does it
Plan in Pledge is a timeline per person with projects, time off and public holidays. Holidays come from the calendar for your country, so they're already taken off. When you send a contract, the team you picked for it is booked tentatively. When the client signs, the bookings are confirmed and the contract becomes a project. Read more in from signed contract to a staffed project. Plan is an optional module next to contracts.
Questions
- What is the difference between resource planning and project planning?
- Project planning is about tasks and deadlines within one project. Resource planning is about people's time across all projects, so you see who has capacity.
- How far ahead should a small agency plan?
- Four to eight weeks is enough for most. Further out, the plan is mostly a guess, and it's enough to know which bigger projects are coming.
- Should we plan 100 percent of people's time?
- No. Leave room for internal work, sales and surprises. Many agencies plan 70 to 85 percent of capacity on client projects.
Try Pledge
Contracts, time, plans and leads for small agencies, with an MCP server for Claude and ChatGPT. Pledge is in private beta: leave your email and we will send an invite.