Resource Planning for Consulting Firms: A Practical Guide

In a consulting firm, people are the product. Every hour a consultant sits idle is revenue that does not come back, and every week someone is booked twice is a deadline at risk. Resource planning is how a firm decides who works on what, and when. This guide explains the key terms, the signs that planning is not working, and how to set it up, with or without an ERP system.

What resource planning means in a consulting firm

Resource planning is matching the people you have with the work you have, and the work you expect to win. Four terms carry most of it:

• Capacity: the hours each person can work in a period, after holidays, leave and internal time.
• Demand: the hours your projects need, from projects that are running and from opportunities in the pipeline.
• Allocation: who is booked on which project, for how many hours, and when. Bookings on likely but unconfirmed work are often kept separate from confirmed ones.
• Utilization: the share of a person's available hours spent on billable work, planned ahead and measured afterwards.

Good resource planning keeps the four in balance: enough capacity for the demand, the right people on the right projects, and utilization that is high without burning people out.

Signs your resource planning is not working

• The plan lives in a spreadsheet that only one person understands.
• People are booked on two projects at once, and nobody notices until the week starts.
• Some consultants are overloaded while others wait for work.
• New projects are staffed late, because nobody saw them coming.
• Project managers compete for the same people instead of planning together.
• Nobody can say what next month's utilization will be.

If several of these sound familiar, the problem is rarely the people doing the planning. It is that the information they need sits in different places.

How to set it up

1. Get capacity right first

Start with one shared view of who is available: working hours, holidays, leave and the time each person spends on internal work. A plan built on the wrong capacity is wrong from the start.

2. Plan demand from projects and pipeline

Put the hours that running projects need into the plan, and add the likely work from the pipeline as tentative bookings. That is what lets you see a staffing gap weeks before it becomes a problem.

3. Assign people by role and skill

Book people for what the project needs, not only for who happens to be free. Plan by role first if you do not yet know exactly who will do the work, and name the person when you do.

4. Compare the plan with what actually happened

The time people register is the truth about the plan. When registered hours are compared with planned hours, it shows where estimates were off, and which projects are drifting. This only works if registering time is quick enough that people do it every day.

5. Review it every week

A short weekly staffing meeting with project managers, looking at the next few weeks in detail and the months after in rough terms, keeps the plan alive. Without it, any tool turns back into a spreadsheet.

Spreadsheet, ERP or dedicated tool?

Spreadsheets work for a handful of people and projects. They break when several people plan at once, when the plan has to be compared with registered time, or when someone asks what next quarter looks like.

ERP systems built for professional services, such as Deltek Maconomy, include resource management alongside projects and finance. That gives one source for budgets, plans and time, but planning screens in an ERP are not always where project managers spend their day.

A dedicated planning tool puts planning where people already work. What matters most, whichever you choose, is that capacity, demand and registered time come together in one place, and that the people who plan actually use it.

How VOLI Projects does it

VOLI Projects is VOLI's tool for project and resource planning. It runs in the browser and inside Microsoft Teams, so project managers plan where they already work. It covers:

• a capacity overview across the firm
• demand planning across projects
• utilization, planned and actual
• balancing staff across projects, with AI-supported suggestions
• time and expense registration, with time suggestions based on earlier work, calendar events and bookings

VOLI Projects works on its own. Firms that run Maconomy can connect it, so projects, time sheets and roles stay in sync with Maconomy in both directions. Resource management costs 5 EUR per user per month, and the price and ROI calculator shows the cost and return for your team size.

Frequently asked questions

What is a good utilization rate for consultants?

It depends on the role. Consultants are usually expected to bill more of their time than managers and partners, whose hours also go to sales and leadership. What matters most is that each target is realistic, and that utilization is measured the same way every month.

Do we need an ERP system to plan resources?

No. A planning tool can work on its own. An ERP becomes useful when you also want plans, registered time, invoicing and project finance in one place.

How far ahead should we plan?

In detail for the next few weeks, and roughly for the months after, using the pipeline. The further out you look, the more the plan is about roles and totals rather than named people.

Who should own resource planning?

In smaller firms often one resource manager, in larger firms the project managers together, with one person who keeps the overall view and runs the weekly staffing meeting.