Workload plan: how to build one and actually steer with it

A workload plan puts two figures side by side over time: capacity — what a team can realistically deliver — and demand — what the committed projects require. Where demand exceeds capacity, the plan is not late yet, but it will be. The whole value of the exercise is to see that gap several weeks ahead rather than at the deadline.

Start from net capacity, not headcount

Ten people do not mean ten people’s worth of project work. Subtract leave, public holidays, part-time arrangements, run and support duties, and the share of time that never lands on a project. Net capacity is often 60 to 75% of the gross figure. A workload plan built on gross capacity is optimistic by construction and will be disbelieved the first time it is wrong.

Demand comes from the plan, not from opinions

The demand side is the sum of the effort allocated to each person across every project they work on, spread over the periods in which the tasks are scheduled. That is why the workload plan cannot be maintained separately from the schedule: as soon as a task slips, the load moves with it. A workload plan re-typed by hand into a spreadsheet is out of date on the day it is circulated.

Reading the histogram

Sustained overload is the obvious signal, but not the only one. Alternating peaks and troughs on the same person usually reveals a sequencing problem rather than a staffing one; a chronically under-loaded profile often means a skill that is not being tapped. Read the plan by role or by skill as well as by individual — the answer is rarely to hire.

What to do with an overload

Four levers, in increasing order of cost: smooth the work within the available float, shift a task to a quieter period, reassign it to another resource with the right skill, or arbitrate — postpone or drop a lower-priority project. The last lever is a portfolio decision, not a project one, which is why workload has to be looked at across all projects at once.

Doing it in FoxPlan

FoxPlan builds the workload histogram from the allocations of every project in the portfolio, against a capacity that already accounts for calendars, leave and part-time. Overloads can be read by resource, by skill or by project priority, and any change to the plan updates the picture immediately.