Consulting firms: the challenges of resource planning (2022)

resource planning in consulting firms

resource planning is at the heart of the associates' concerns. Since we sell grey matter time, it is essential to manage availability and skills to optimize consultant availability. Here's a brief overview of the issues and how our firms are tackling them.

The stakes :

The resource planning is a particularly critical subject, as it is key to the firm's profitability, and can be very complex to get right. Here are the parameters to consider:  

pipe and the workload to manage

To know who to staff, you first need to know what you need. One way or another, you need to have a complete picture of the needs of current assignments. That is to say: recent proposals won and those that have been presented to prospects, and their chances of success. And for each of these projects, you need to identify the requirements (number of days, seniority, particular expertise, etc.).

Pipe in Stafiz

Consultant availability

This is obviously the most important point. First of all, we need information: who is available today to work on a "propale"? Which junior will be available for 3 months from next week to work on the mission we've just sold? We need to collect the most up-to-date and reliable information to know who's available and who's not (a mission sold at 70%, for example).

Staff availability in Stafiz

Skills required

On certain assignments, you need special expertise. An Excel whiz to do a financial assignment, a rail expert to work for the SNCF, etc. It's not always easy to keep track of all the assignments and the skills of everyone in the firm, especially if you have a lot of colleagues. But you have to do your best to find the person who will best convince your prospect to choose your firm, and who will carry out the project most effectively.

Candidate skills

Priority missions

There are a number of reasons why some assignments should come before others. For example, an assignment may be strategic for the firm, because if it is small or has been poorly sold, it may open the door to a second, much larger and more profitable assignment. Assignments for which ADR are higher may also be prioritized, for example.  

Consultants' desires and career management

The last two elements to take into account are the desire of the consultants (so-and-so who spent 4 years in Brest with Orange may be looking for a change of scenery), and the management of their skills. To prepare young people to become managers, they need to have seen a certain number of different types of assignment, and to have been able to handle presentations and Excel, short assignments and long ones, and so on. Keeping track of each individual's background and the gaps to be filled in a career path enables resource planning to be adapted accordingly.  

Processes generally implemented

Consulting firms have set up various resource planning models. They are backed up by step-by-step processes and resource planning highlights such as the aptly named weekly meeting "de resource planning ". Here are the practices identified by Stafiz:  

Centralized :

In this case, a limited number of people, usually the managing director or the 2 or 3 partners of a firm, make the assignment decisions. These people therefore need to know each of the associates well.  

Decentralized :

All partners and managers of a firm can staff someone on an assignment. If a consultant is available, it's possible to staff them directly without validation. This speeds up resource planning , but also entails risks: overestimated workloads, proposals not yet sold, etc. In some firms, the consultants themselves have control over their resource planning. This empowerment does not exclude control, which associates can carry out at any time by consulting ERP data.  

Need sheets :

In a centralized process, it is possible to draw up forms expressing the needs of resource planning. Created at the start of an assignment, or when a reorganization is required, they include basic information about the request. This information includes seniority, profiles, dates, workload and specific skills. These sheets are then reconciled to coordinate needs and availabilities and find the best combination.  

The resource planning meetings:

Most firms organize weekly or fortnightly meetings to discuss resource planning face-to-face. These meetings generally begin with a summary of pipe and the proposals won, and last one or two hours, depending on the trade-offs to be made.  

The contribution of software :

Most consulting firms still use Excel to manage their resource planning. Yet new technologies bring undeniable advantages:

• Collaboration: depending on the authorizations they have been given, everyone can view and modify the information that interests them. A junior, for example, can only view his own resource planning, while associates can modify everyone else's resource planning .

• Reliability of information: data can be modified 24/7, and everyone can modify the data to which they have access. This army of contributors means that resource planning is reliable from day to day. If a resource planning is not up to date, a number of factors will in some way force the manager to update it: for example, his associate may ask him to do so, because he himself needs to take stock of the business. The partner can also modify resource planning to bring it up to date. Juniors can also see that their resource planning is up to date, and request an update if necessary. Finally, the manager himself is alerted if his resource planning forecast is incomplete. His margin rate will be wrong and his mission management degraded; he will therefore be encouraged to update the data.

• Real time: no need to call all your colleagues, or run around the corridors to get the latest information, just log on (on your mobile, for example) to get resource planning live.

Related article: Why use a resource planning tool? Video on resource planning  

Stafiz is resource planning software that helps you manage your resources and steer your projects. Get real-time visibility of your employees' workloads and schedules. Search for and assign resources to your missions with greater ease. Optimize your employees' workloads to ensure their retention! 

To find out more about the Stafiz platform, visit the dedicated page.

resource planning in Stafiz