Capability template for project and delivery
Engagement staffing plan
When several engagements want the same people, the resource lead sees the collision before kickoff: role needs against free days, leave and competing assignments, week by week, with two or three staffing options. The resource lead and partners choose.
Listed under
Add it to a workflow in the Fully Powered Planner, beside the teams and roles that will run it. Book a fit call
The outcome
The clash between engagements shows up on a page weeks ahead, not in a corridor conversation in the week the work starts. For each role and qualification the page sets the days the committed engagements need beside the days the qualified people actually have free after leave, their current assignments and their review commitments. Where the two do not meet, it names the weeks, the days short and the engagements and bookings that are competing for the same people.
Tentative wins are kept apart. The page first shows what committed work alone requires, then what changes if the tentative engagement is also won, so nobody staffs a hope as though it were a contract.
Then come two or three options, each built only from levers the firm has stated: a start that may move within a stated range, or an assignment its partner has said can slide. Every option shows the shortfall it leaves and what it touches. The AI assistant assigns nobody and recommends nothing unless asked. The resource lead and the engagement partners choose assignments and agree any schedule change.
Who starts the work, and when
The resource lead, the operations manager or a managing partner starts it when a new engagement is confirmed, when a tentative one gets close, or at the regular staffing review, ahead of the weeks in question. It runs again when leave is approved, a start date moves or an assignment changes. The resource lead reads it the same day and takes the options to the partners involved.
What they supply
- People: each person's role, qualifications and standard days a week.
- Leave: each person's approved absences, with dates.
- Current assignments: who is booked on what, for which weeks and how many days a week, including review time, and whether the engagement's partner has said it can move.
- Demand: each engagement's open needs by role and qualification, with start, end, days a week, whether it is committed or tentative, the range in which its start may move, and the approved budget in days.
- Settings: the planning window, the days the office is closed and any notes, such as a partner's agreement to let a booking slide.
What comes out
A plan in a fixed order: committed capacity by role and week, the collision named, the same comparison with tentative work added, two or three options with the shortfall each leaves, the input flags, the people not counted and why, and the decisions only the resource lead and partners can make. Any section with nothing to report says so. If a file's headings do not match the expected ones, nothing is calculated until the person says which column is which.
An invented example
Illustrative example with invented data. The firm, the people, the engagements, the dates and the days below are all invented. The firm is an invented advisory firm with two senior consultants qualified for process review and a partner with a few days a week for review. First come the inputs the resource lead supplied, in full, then the plan the capability returned.
The inputs
1. Settings and notes
Planning window: Monday 11 January 2027 to Friday 19 February 2027
Weeks: Monday to Friday
Closed days: none
Today: Friday 8 January 2027
Notes:
- Engagement C's partner has said C's days can slide later. Any days
released go after 19 February.
- Engagement F is not signed. It is tentative.
2. people.csv
person,role,qualifications,days_per_week
Odalys,Senior consultant,process-review,5
Perrin,Senior consultant,process-review,5
Wendell,Senior consultant,data-migration,5
Ilse,Partner,partner-review,3
3. leave.csv
person,from,to
Perrin,2027-02-08,2027-02-12
4. assignments.csv
person,engagement,kind,start,end,days_per_week,can_move
Odalys,Engagement A,delivery,2027-01-11,2027-01-29,3,no
Odalys,Engagement C,delivery,2027-01-11,2027-02-19,2,yes
Perrin,Engagement A,delivery,2027-01-11,2027-02-05,4,no
Wendell,Engagement B,delivery,2027-01-11,2027-02-19,5,no
Ilse,Engagement A,review,2027-01-11,2027-02-05,1,no
Ilse,Engagement B,review,2027-01-11,2027-02-19,1,no
5. demand.csv
engagement,status,kind,role,qualification,start,end,days_per_week,earliest_start,latest_start,approved_days
Engagement D,committed,delivery,Senior consultant,process-review,2027-01-25,2027-02-12,4,2027-01-25,2027-02-01,12
Engagement D,committed,review,Partner,partner-review,2027-01-25,2027-02-12,1,2027-01-25,2027-02-01,3
Engagement F,tentative,delivery,Senior consultant,process-review,2027-02-01,2027-02-19,3,2027-02-01,2027-02-01,8
Engagement F,tentative,review,Partner,partner-review,2027-02-01,2027-02-19,1,2027-02-01,2027-02-01,3
The output
ENGAGEMENT STAFFING PLAN: 11 January to 19 February 2027
For: Resource lead, with the partners for Engagements C and D. Prepared Friday 8 January 2027 from 4 people, 1 leave entry, 6 assignments and 4 demand lines. Weeks counted: W1 11 Jan, W2 18 Jan, W3 25 Jan, W4 1 Feb, W5 8 Feb, W6 15 Feb. Closed days: none.
Demand: 2 committed lines, 2 tentative lines. Lines flagged: 1.
Capacity, committed work only
- Senior consultant, process-review (counted: Odalys, Perrin):
- W3 25 Jan: needed 4, available 1, short 3.
- W4 1 Feb: needed 4, available 4, short 0.
- W5 8 Feb: needed 4, available 3, short 1.
- Partner, partner-review (counted: Ilse):
- W3 25 Jan: needed 1, available 1, short 0.
- W4 1 Feb: needed 1, available 1, short 0.
- W5 8 Feb: needed 1, available 2, short 0.
The collision: Engagement D's delivery line (Senior consultant, process-review, 4 days a week, 25 January to 12 February, 12 days) is short 4 days: 3 in W3 and 1 in W5. In W3 Odalys has no free day (Engagement A 3, Engagement C 2) and Perrin has 1 free day after 4 on Engagement A. In W5 Perrin is on leave from 8 to 12 February and Odalys has 3 free days after 2 on Engagement C. Partner review for Engagement D fits in every week.
With tentative work added (Engagement F)
- Senior consultant, process-review: W3 needed 4, available 1, short 3. W4 needed 7, available 4, short 3. W5 needed 7, available 3, short 4. W6 15 Feb needed 3, available 8, short 0. Total short 10.
- Partner, partner-review: W3 needed 1, available 1, short 0. W4 needed 2, available 1, short 1. W5 needed 2, available 2, short 0. W6 needed 1, available 2, short 0. Total short 1.
Options
- Start Engagement D one week later, 1 February to 19 February, which is its latest start. Committed work: senior consultant W4 needed 4 / available 4, W5 4 / 3, W6 4 / 8; partner W4 1 / 1, W5 1 / 2, W6 1 / 2. Short: 1 day (senior consultant, W5). With Engagement F won: senior consultant short 7 (W4 3, W5 4), partner short 1 (W4). Touches: Engagement D's dates move one week; the partner of Engagement D to agree.
- Keep Engagement D's dates and release Engagement C's 2 days in W3 and 2 in W5 (4 days, from Odalys's booking; the booking's full 2 days a week, though the line is short only 1 day in W5, which the rule allows; they land after 19 February and are not placed here). Committed work: senior consultant W3 needed 4 / available 3, W4 4 / 4, W5 4 / 5; partner unchanged. Short: 1 day (senior consultant, W3). With Engagement F won: senior consultant short 6 (W3 1, W4 3, W5 2), partner short 1 (W4). Touches: Engagement C loses 4 days in W3 and W5; the partner of Engagement C to agree.
- Start Engagement D one week later and release Engagement C's 2 days in W5 (the booking's full days a week, where the line is short 1). Committed work: senior consultant W4 needed 4 / available 4, W5 4 / 5, W6 4 / 8; partner W4 1 / 1, W5 1 / 2, W6 1 / 2. Short: 0. With Engagement F won: senior consultant short 5 (W4 3, W5 2), partner short 1 (W4). Touches: Engagement D's dates move one week and Engagement C loses 2 days in W5; the partners of Engagements C and D to agree.
If Engagement F is won, no combination of the levers supplied covers it. The days still short are in the option lines above. What to do about them, such as outside capacity or a later start for F, is for the resource lead and the partners to raise; no cost has been estimated.
Flags: 1
- Engagement F, delivery line: approved days are 8, but 3 days a week for 3 weeks is 9.
Not counted: Wendell, Senior consultant, holds data-migration and not process-review, so his days are not in the process-review supply.
Decisions for the resource lead and partners: 3
- Which way to cover Engagement D's 4 short days: a one-week later start (1 day still short, W5), releasing Engagement C's days (1 day still short, W3), or both (none short)? Engagement D's partner would agree the start; Engagement C's partner has said its days can slide.
- Whether Engagement F is staffed if it is won, given that 5 to 7 delivery days stay short under every option and 1 review day is short in W4.
- Whether Engagement F's approved budget is 8 days or 9.
Draft for the resource lead. Nothing has been assigned, moved, sent or changed. Every figure traces to the files supplied.
Where it fits
- Professional services, where the same few specialists are wanted by several engagements and review time is as scarce as delivery time.
- Engineering firms, where licensed or specialist staff are the limit on how many projects can run at once.
- Marketing and advertising, where a strategist or senior designer is promised to more than one account.
- Project and delivery, which owns the engagement dates and the people on them.
- Operations and process improvement, where staffing rhythms are set and kept.
- Established businesses, where staffing lives in one person's memory and a shared spreadsheet.
- Growth and scaling, where wins arrive faster than the bench grows.
What has to change for your company
Decide your roles and qualifications and keep the names identical across files. Decide who may cover which role, because as written a person fills only a line for their own role. Set the unit of time: the capability counts Monday to Friday weeks and days. State which bookings may move and who has agreed. Choose the ceiling for a part-time person's days. Decide how much of a week a partner has for review. It does not set hiring or headcount, which is Headcount plan, and it does not score a new proposal, which is Project intake and capacity review. It makes no judgment of any person's performance and ignores ratings or pay if they are supplied.
What has been checked
Fully Powered AI wrote this capability template. It was editorially reviewed on 10 November 2026. It was tried once on its invented example in Claude on 10 November 2026, and the record is published with it; edits made afterward have not been run again. It has not yet been tested in a client environment. It has not yet been tested as a packaged version in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or Gemini.
Testing in your environment means running it on a past quarter your resource lead remembers well, plus cases written in advance with the expected result: a person on leave in the week of a start, a qualification held by nobody, an assignment that runs past its engagement, a tentative win that would double the load. The resource lead checks every figure against the source files before anyone relies on it. Pilot acceptance-test preparation sets those cases up.
The full capability template
Everything above is the outline. The complete capability template is the working version: the roles, the inputs, the procedure, the exceptions and stop conditions, the output format, the reviewer checklist, the acceptance tests, the instructions for an AI assistant and what to customize for your company. It comes with a download and the link to its folder in Fully Powered’s public repository.
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