People and capacity
See the week fill up. Before you promise it.
Weekly hours by person and project, measured against each person's capacity, so overload shows before the client date.
Oct 13 is 4h over capacityA new campaign asks for 12 hours.
The designer already has 32 of 40 hours planned. Accept the request as it stands and the week reaches 110%. The four extra hours show up in the plan, before they show up as a missed date.
Try each option and watch where the week lands.
Amara OseiDesigner, week of Oct 13
- Clinic website rebuild, 18h
- Spring campaign, 14h
80%32h of 40h. Eight hours still open this week.
- Clinic website rebuild, 18h
- Spring campaign, 14h
- New campaign, 12h
110%44h of 40h. Four hours above capacity. Move, reassign or talk scope before the client expects it.
- Clinic website rebuild, 18h
- Spring campaign, 14h
- New campaign, 8h
100%40h of 40h. Four hours of the new campaign move to the week of Oct 20.
The people plan
Every person, every week, on one screen.
Tasks say who owns the work. Allocations say how much of the week it takes. Put them against capacity and the conflict becomes a specific conversation about which engagement moves.
Capacity per person
Capacity rules set each person's weekly hours from a start date.
Hours by project and week
An allocation reserves part of someone's week for one project.
A number in every cell
Each week shows the hours allocated and the share of capacity they use.
Overload flagged early
Weeks above 100% of capacity are marked Overloaded.
The projects behind the total
Open a busy week to see which engagements make up the hours.
Four weeks at a time
Step through the plan and keep the nearest weeks detailed.
Two utilization numbers. Two different questions.
Planned utilization
Allocated hours ÷ capacity
Is the plan asking too much of this person?
Billable utilization
Recorded billable hours ÷ available time
How much of the week went to work a client pays for?
Someone can be fully allocated to a mix of billable and internal work, or lightly planned with a busy recorded week. Read both, and let neither stand in for the other.
A planning routine for every Monday.
A plan that nobody revisits ends up measuring old promises. A short weekly pass keeps it measuring the work the team is carrying now.
Confirm
Check each person's weekly capacity and apply changes for the right period.
Capacity rulesAllocate
Assign project hours by week using the best current estimate.
AllocationsResolve
Open the overloaded weeks and decide which work moves, changes owner or needs a scope talk.
Project breakdownCompare
Check logged time against the plan and improve the next estimate.
Reports
Clear about what the plan can tell you.
What resource planning does
- Allocates weekly hours by person and project.
- Compares allocations with each person's capacity.
- Marks weeks above 100% as overloaded.
- Shows the projects behind each week's total.
What it does not do
- Reserve someone's week when you assign a task.
- Explain why a number is low. Ask the owner of the plan.
- Ask anyone for overtime. Over 100% is a conflict to resolve.
- Replace your HR, leave or contractor records.
Treat a low or high percentage as a question about the plan, never a verdict on the person. Compare the plan with logged time ↗
The details.
Everything above, in depth. Open what you need.
Separate the delivery task from the people plan
A task describes work to complete. A resource allocation reserves a portion of someone's time for a project in a particular week. Those records are related, but they answer different questions. A designer can own several tasks that each look reasonable while the combined weekly commitment exceeds their available hours.
Flowboard's planning model records person-and-project allocations against weekly capacity rules. The resulting view can show allocated hours, available capacity, utilization, and the project breakdown behind the total. This helps a producer move from 'the team looks busy' to a specific discussion about which engagement can move, shrink, or receive additional support.
Use capacity that reflects the actual working pattern
Capacity should represent the working time available for the plan, not an aspirational number chosen to make the schedule fit. Different people may have different weekly capacity or effective dates for their rules. Review those assumptions when someone changes hours, joins a project, or has a known period of reduced availability.
Allocation summaries can reveal people who are overloaded or underused relative to the configured capacity. They do not explain why. A low allocation may mean a project has not yet been planned, a person is deliberately reserved for sales support, or the data is out of date. Ask the owner of the plan before interpreting the color or percentage as a performance judgment.
An illustrative week crosses the capacity line
Suppose a designer has 40 hours of weekly capacity and 32 hours allocated across existing projects. Planned utilization is 80%, leaving eight hours unallocated. A new campaign requests another 12 hours in that week. If all 12 are accepted without changing the existing plan, total allocation becomes 44 hours and planned utilization becomes 110%.
The extra four hours make the planning conflict visible before the client expects delivery. Move suitable work into another week, reassign it, or discuss the scope and date with the client. The project breakdown gives the producer a concrete basis for that conversation.
| Plan state | Allocated hours | Against 40-hour capacity |
|---|---|---|
| Existing commitments | 32 | 80% |
| New request | 12 | 30% additional |
| Unadjusted total | 44 | 110% |
| Conflict to resolve | 4 | Hours above capacity |
Build a weekly planning routine
Resource planning becomes useful when the agency revisits it as work changes. A plan that is never updated eventually measures the promises made in the past rather than the commitments the team is currently carrying.
Confirm capacity assumptions
Review the people in the plan and their weekly availability. Apply changes for the appropriate period rather than using one number for everyone indefinitely.
Allocate the known work
Assign project hours by week using the best current estimate. Include the commitments that genuinely consume the team's time.
Resolve visible conflicts
Inspect the project breakdown for overloaded people. Decide which work moves, changes owner, or requires a scope conversation.
Compare with actual delivery
Use logged time and reporting to understand where the plan diverged from reality. Improve the next allocation instead of treating the first estimate as a fixed truth.
Read planned utilization and billable utilization separately
Planned utilization compares allocated hours with configured capacity. Actual billable utilization compares recorded billable work with available time. A person can be fully allocated to a mixture of billable and non-billable work, or have a light plan but a busy recorded week. Neither metric should silently replace the other.
Keep employment terms, leave policies, and contractor agreements in your HR process. Use their availability when setting weekly capacity in Flowboard, so the delivery plan reflects the team you can actually schedule.
Compare plan and actual work
Use operational reporting to investigate the difference between allocations and time records.
Explore this workflow ↗Keep project commitments concrete
Connect the people plan to tasks, dates, and delivery outcomes.
Explore this workflow ↗Questions
Before you plan the next four weeks.
Does assigning a task automatically reserve someone's week?
No. Task assignments show who owns the work; weekly resource allocations show the time planned for it. Use allocations to compare project commitments with each person's available capacity.
What does an allocation above 100% mean?
It means the allocated hours exceed the configured capacity for that period. It identifies a conflict to review, not an instruction to work overtime. Check the inputs, then adjust dates, scope, staffing, or the underlying plan as appropriate.
Can different people have different capacity?
Capacity rules set each person's weekly availability from a start date. Use values that reflect the actual planning context. A standard full-time week may be a useful starting point, but it should not override a person's different working arrangement.
Is available capacity the same as time available for billable work?
Not necessarily. Internal work, management, sales support, and other commitments can consume capacity. Decide how those responsibilities appear in the plan, and distinguish planned allocation from actual billable utilization when reviewing the team's performance.
How far ahead should we plan?
Plan far enough to evaluate upcoming commitments, but expect distant estimates to change. Keep the nearest weeks detailed and review later allocations as scope becomes clearer. The useful horizon depends on your sales cycle, delivery lead time, and the uncertainty of the work.