Monday, 9.30, around the whiteboard
The traffic manager has a whiteboard or a big spreadsheet with names down the side and days across the top. Account managers take turns saying what their clients need this week. A designer says she is off Thursday, which nobody had written down. Two account managers both need the video editor on Wednesday. The meeting overruns. The plan is written up afterwards and is out of date by Tuesday lunchtime, when a client moves a deadline.
By Wednesday people are working from Slack messages and the traffic manager is fielding a stream of "can someone just" requests.
Why the week has to be rebuilt each time
- Tasks and deadlines live in the project tool, but estimates of effort are missing or optimistic.
- Retainer work is recurring and predictable, yet it is re-planned from scratch each week.
- Leave is in the HR system or a shared calendar that the resourcing sheet does not read.
- Freelancer bookings are in the ops lead's inbox.
- The plan lives in one person's spreadsheet, so any change depends on them.
Most of what the meeting discusses was already known somewhere. It is spoken aloud because nothing brings it together.
What the scramble costs
Senior people spend a large part of Monday morning in a meeting that mostly restates facts. Clashes are found late, so deadlines slip or evenings are worked. Some people are overbooked while others have gaps nobody noticed. The agency cannot answer a simple sales question, such as whether it can take on a new retainer next month, without another meeting.
The resourcing view we build
- Recurring retainer work is set up once per client as a weekly or monthly pattern, with rough hours by role, so it appears in the plan automatically.
- Project tasks with dates and estimates are read from your project tool, such as Asana, ClickUp, Teamwork or Monday.com.
- Leave and bank holidays are read from your HR tool or shared calendar.
- Freelancer bookings are added from the booking record, so extra capacity is visible.
- The view shows each person's week against their available hours, with overbooked days and clashes highlighted.
- Before the meeting, a short list of decisions is produced: clashes, overbooked people, work with no one assigned, and deadlines at risk.
- Changes made in the meeting are written back to the project tool, so the plan and the tasks agree.
| Input | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Recurring retainer work | Patterns set per client |
| Project tasks and deadlines | Your project tool |
| Leave and holidays | HR tool or shared calendar |
| Freelancer capacity | Freelancer booking record |
| Available hours per person | Contracted hours less non-client time |
If you already use a resourcing tool such as Float and the gap is only the retainer patterns or the leave feed, we connect those into it rather than add another screen.
A shorter Monday
The traffic manager opens the view on Monday and it already shows the week. The meeting goes through the list of clashes and gaps, makes the calls, and ends. When a client moves a deadline on Tuesday, the account manager changes it in the project tool and the view updates, with any new clash flagged to the traffic manager rather than discovered on Thursday.
When the MD asks whether the agency can take on a new client next month, the same view looks forward and shows which roles have room.
Does your Monday look like this?
- The weekly resourcing meeting is mostly people reading out their lists.
- The plan lives in one person's spreadsheet or on a whiteboard.
- Leave is discovered in the meeting.
- Clashes for the same person are found midweek.
- You cannot say whether there is room for a new client without asking around.