The Monday resource meeting that runs on guesswork
Every Monday the directors meet to talk about who is working on what. The resource spreadsheet has a row for each engineer and a column for each week, coloured by project. Half of it is wrong. A stage 3 slipped because the architect is late with layouts, so the two engineers booked on it are actually waiting. Meanwhile a tender package for a warehouse came forward and needs three people now.
The meeting becomes a conversation about what everyone thinks is happening. Decisions are made, the spreadsheet is partly updated, and by Wednesday it has drifted again.
Why the resource sheet never stays right
- Project programmes are owned by architects and clients, and they change without telling you.
- The sheet is disconnected from fee budgets, so nobody knows if the hours planned fit the fee.
- Leave, training and site visits are recorded elsewhere and not reflected.
- Actual time booked is never compared with what was planned.
- Only one person maintains it, and they have their own work to do.
An engineering practice's workload is lumpy. Stages start late, pause for planning, then need doing at once. A static grid cannot show that without constant manual effort.
Engineering adds its own wrinkle: skills are not interchangeable. The engineer free next week may be a drainage specialist when the job needs someone who can do a steel frame. A resource sheet that shows hours without skills tells directors who is idle, not who can actually pick up the work.
What poor resource planning costs
| Symptom | Result |
|---|---|
| Engineers overloaded on one project | Late issues and rushed checking |
| Engineers under-used while waiting | Non-chargeable time, no plan for it |
| New work accepted without capacity | Existing clients get slower service |
| Senior people doing junior work | Fees consumed faster than planned |
| No view beyond next few weeks | Hiring decisions made too late or too early |
How we build a resource planner
- We import live projects with their stages, dates and fee budgets from your project or accounts system.
- For each stage, a director or project lead allocates people by grade and rough weekly hours, starting from a suggestion based on the fee budget.
- Leave and training come in from your HR or leave system, such as BrightHR or Microsoft 365 calendars, so availability is real.
- When a stage date changes, the allocation moves with it, and any clash it creates is flagged.
- Actual time from timesheets sits against planned time, so directors see where plans were optimistic.
- Pipeline jobs from your fee proposals appear as tentative work, weighted by how likely they are to land.
- A weekly view shows each engineer's load, and a longer view shows capacity by grade months ahead.
We keep it editable by the people who plan, drag and drop where it helps, rather than locking it behind a rules engine. The value is in the connections, not in automating the directors' judgement.
Each engineer's profile records their main disciplines and the software they are comfortable with, so when a director looks for capacity the planner can show who is free and suitable, not just who is free. That is usually the question the Monday meeting is really trying to answer.
The resource meeting afterwards
The Monday meeting starts from a view that already reflects moved stage dates, leave and actual hours. The discussion shifts from 'what is happening' to 'what do we do about it': who picks up the warehouse tender, whether the graduate can take on the drainage design, whether to bring in a freelance engineer next quarter.
Because pipeline work is visible, decisions about new hires or turning down work can be made on something firmer than a feeling of being busy.
Is your resourcing like this?
- The resource spreadsheet is rebuilt or heavily edited every week.
- Moved stage dates are discovered when engineers are found waiting.
- Leave is not visible in the resource plan.
- Nobody compares planned hours with actual hours.
- You accept new work without knowing who will do it.