Line up the sales pipeline with the resourcing plan.
In services, the resource to plan is your teams' available time. Understaffing loses revenue, overstaffing costs margin, and the trade-off is revisited every week.
What we hear
The topics that keep coming up in services.
Sales leadership and delivery work on two different workload projections. The gap becomes visible two quarters later, in margin or in attrition.
- The sales pipeline and the staffing plan live in two tools that do not talk to each other
- Utilisation is observed at month end, when it is too late to act
- Hiring is decided on conviction rather than on a workload projection
- Margin per assignment is calculated afterwards, never before committing
- Scarce skills are allocated by arrangement between managers, not by rule
- A multi-year contract is not connected to any workload plan for the teams serving it
In practice
A resourcing plan screen.
Utilisation, weighted pipeline and quarterly coverage are tracked together, which makes a workload trough visible months ahead.
Available capacity and staffed workload
Illustration of a resourcing plan. Fictional data.
What we put in place
What we put in place in services.
Resourcing plan
Capacity by skill and by week, set against committed assignments and the weighted pipeline.
Pipeline steering
Probabilities, start dates and profile needs, connected to the delivery plan.
Data-led hiring
Hiring triggered by a workload projection, not by a feeling of pressure.
Margin per assignment
Day rates, loaded costs and expenses, simulated before signature.
Growth scenarios
Test opening an office or shifting the mix before deciding on it.
Recurring revenue
Multi-year contracts and their renewal projected in the same model.