Capacity on the project — not a stale matrix.
Roles, catalogue, resource plans, demand, and bookings live with the delivery record. Availability and contention read from the same spine People already trusts.
Open demand
9
Soft booked
14
Committed
31
Staffing should not be a weekly rebuild.
Capacity planning fails when demand, bookings, and availability live outside the project. Leaders need load that moves when the plan moves.
The spreadsheet matrix
Names, FTE, and weeks live in a file that ages out the day after the plan moves. Controllers ask for the “real” version — there isn’t one.
HR and projects diverge
People already has the org spine. Resource tools invent a second roster — then blame delivery when names don’t match.
Bookings without a lifecycle
Soft holds, commits, and releases happen in chat. Demand never closes. Contention shows up on the critical path, not in the booking queue.
Name what the project can consume.
A governed catalogue — people, roles, teams, equipment, materials, externals — plus role/skill definitions so demand isn’t typed as free text every week.
Resource catalogue
PERSON
Person
48 on project
ROLE
Role
22 on project
TEAM
Team
9 on project
EQUIPMENT
Equipment
14 on project
MATERIAL
Material
6 on project
EXTERNAL
External
11 on project
Roles & skills
- 3 open
Site engineer
Civil · QA
- 1 open
MEP lead
HVAC · Electrical
- 2 open
Commissioning mgr
Systems · Handover
Version the staffing intent.
Resource plans publish like schedules — draft, published, superseded. Demand and bookings hang off a governed plan version, not a chat thread.
Plan versions · Coastal Dry Dock
- v3PUBLISHED
Published · Mar cut
Current staffing intent
- v2SUPERSEDED
Superseded · Kickoff
Retained for compare
- v4DRAFT
Draft · Rebalance
MEP surge scenario
Ask for capacity with a lifecycle.
Demand lines attach to packages and plan versions — draft → requested → approved → filled (or cancelled/closed). Partial fill is visible, not whispered.
Open demand · plan v3
- APPROVED
Site engineer
Civil package · 2.0 FTE · Apr–Jun
- PARTIALLY FILLED
MEP lead
MEP coordination · 1.0 FTE · May–Aug
- REQUESTED
Crane crew
Structural lift · 1 crew · W18–W20
From soft hold to committed seat.
Bookings follow a real lifecycle — proposed, requested, soft booked, committed, released, rejected. Capacity isn’t “assigned” in a cell that never updates.
01
Proposed
02
Soft booked
03
Committed
04
Released
Active bookings
- COMMITTED
A. Rahman
Site engineer · 100%
- SOFT BOOKED
S. Okonkwo
MEP lead · 60%
- REQUESTED
External · LiftCo
Crane crew · 1 crew
See who is free, tight, or over.
Availability views read committed and soft bookings across the window you care about — so rebalancing starts from load, not a hallway conversation.
Same people spine
Names and roles resolve against the org People already owns — no second roster.
Contention early
Overbook and soft-hold collisions surface before the critical path absorbs them.
Availability · Apr–Jun
- Committed
A. Rahman
Site engineer · 100% load
- Available
M. Chen
Site engineer · 40% load
- Overbooked
S. Okonkwo
MEP lead · 120% load
- Available
J. Park
Commissioning · 55% load
Book capacity on the delivery record
Catalogue, plans, demand, and bookings — resources that move with the plan, not a matrix that aged out last sprint.