Agency Resource Planning: A Beginner’s Guide

Do your projects keep running into roadblocks, leaving some team members swamped with work while others have nothing to do?

The fix:

Effective resource planning.

It’s all about making sure everyone has the right amount of work, deadlines are met, and projects stay on track.

Here’s how agencies can get it right:

What is resource planning in project management?

Resource planning is a proactive way to assign project tasks based on team members’ availability and strengths.

It helps your team work smarter by:

• Matching people to projects that fit their strengths and interests, boosting engagement and quality
• Balancing workloads to prevent burnout and keep productivity high
• Reducing conflicts so projects stay on schedule

Benefits of resource planning in project management

Good resource planning makes sure your team’s time and skills are used wisely, helping projects run smoothly and increasing profitability, and overall success.

Here’s what you’ll gain:

• Stronger project teams: Match the right people to the right projects. For example, assign a senior developer to lead a complex app launch while giving a junior designer smaller tasks to help them grow.
• Balanced workloads: Avoid burnout and inefficiency by splitting tasks evenly. For instance, divide a 40-hour workload between two designers to keep productivity high
• Fewer mistakes: Clear roles and schedules prevent issues like duplicate work, missed deadlines, or handoff errors between teams
• Faster project delivery: Identify and resolve scheduling conflicts—like two projects competing for the same resource—before they cause delays
• Happier teams: Manageable workloads and clear expectations keep your team engaged, productive, and motivated.

How to plan your team resources for a project

Mastering resource planning takes time, but the payoff is substantial. By refining your process, you’ll reduce overtime costs, consistently hit project milestones, and boost profitability.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Outline the project’s estimated scope

Start with a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) to break the project into phases, deliverables, and tasks.

Next, assign roles (e.g., designer, developer, content writer) to each task based on their expertise. This ensures the right people are working on the right parts of the project.

Then, estimate how long each role (e.g., designer, developer) will take to complete their tasks. Be sure to account for both billable and non-billable hours to create a realistic timeline.

For example, here’s what a rebranding project might look like:

Phase	Task	Role	Hours	Description
Preparation Phase	Research	Marketing Analyst	30	Competitor analysis, audience research, trend analysis.
	Strategy Creation	Marketing Manager	20	Branding guidelines, messaging framework, marketing channels.
Delivery Phase	Design	Graphic Designer	30	Logo design, visual assets, marketing collateral.
	Check-In Meeting	Project Manager	2	Review designs with the client, gather feedback.
	Copywriting	Content Writer	20	Website copy, social media content, ad copy.

Resource planning tools like Scoro can streamline this process by starting the resource planning process during the quoting phase.

Here’s how:

Create a new quote from any view using the quick actions menu. 

Then, add deliverables to the left side of the screen—click preset services from your product database or enter new ones as needed. 

On the right-hand side of the screen, use the “Cost and provider info” and “Margin” columns to input internal costs, set margin targets, assign specific roles (e.g., Strategy Expert), and estimated hours.

Next, use the “Add Subheading” option (highlighted in the image) to organize your quote into project phases, such as “Delivery Phase” or “Materials.” This helps you group tasks and deliverables logically, making it easier to allocate resources and track costs for each phase of the project.

Once your quote is finalized, click “Save” and then click “Create project.”

After creating the project, if you need to adjust any project details or workload, go to the “Projects” tab. Click on any project to modify the new project’s parameters, timelines, or resource requirements.

2. Assess your team’s availability and existing workloads

Before diving into task assignments, it’s essential to understand the current availability and workloads of your team.

This step ensures you’re making the most of your team’s capacity while avoiding burnout or resource conflicts.

This involves reviewing how much time each team member has available and comparing it to their existing tasks and responsibilities.

It’s about answering questions like:

• Who has capacity to take on this project?
• Are there any team members already overbooked or underutilized?
• Do timelines need adjusting to balance the workload effectively

Using Scoro’s “Bookings” tab simplifies this process by automatically generating tentative time slots based on the roles, hours, and timelines set in the quoting phase (after creating a project from your quote).

For example, if you quoted 50 hours for project management over four weeks, Scoro would split this time across 20 workdays, tentatively booking 2.5 hours per day.

A color-coded heat map provides a visual representation of resource utilization, showing how team members’ time is distributed:

• Green: Available time
• Red: Overbooked
• Purple: Unavailable time booked with tasks
• Striped: Tentative bookings that aren’t finalized (only available for roles, not individuals)
• Solid: Finalized bookings

By showing how much of a team member’s total working hours are already booked, the heat map helps you quickly identify where time is over or under-utilized.

For example, you might see that the Senior Graphic Designer role is in the red zone for the next two weeks. You would then adjust booking timeframes by dragging and resizing the booking blocks to better align with your project schedule.

And to get a long-term view, switch the filter in the “Bookings” tab from days to months. This will help you avoid any resource conflicts further down the line.

3. Assign team members to project work 

Once you’ve resolved calendar conflicts and finalized the role-based schedule, it’s time to assign specific team members to replace placeholder roles.

When making assignments, consider both utilization rates and individual strengths to balance workloads effectively. Aim for a workload that maximizes productivity without overburdening anyone.

For example:

• If Senior Developer Jane has a utilization rate of 120% while Junior Developer Tom is at 60%, consider redistributing tasks from Jane to Tom. This helps Jane return to a balanced 75-80% workload while giving Tom valuable experience to apply in future projects.
• Alternatively, if a time-sensitive project requires faster results, you might assign Jane due to her ability to deliver high-quality work more quickly

In Scoro, when assigning specific team members, click the three dots next to the placeholder role. Choose “Assign User” and select the appropriate team member. 

Once you’re satisfied, convert tentative bookings to fixed bookings.

Click the booking you want to confirm, and a window will appear. Then, simply change the booking from “Tentative” to “Fixed.”

And if someone becomes unavailable, Scoro makes it easy to transfer work between team members.

You can transfer bookings by clicking the three dots next to the user’s name, choosing who to transfer the bookings to, and confirming the transfer by selecting “Transfer bookings.” 

4. Connect with your team members on resource scheduling 

With your resource plan in place, the next step is assigning actionable, day-to-day tasks to your team members.

Clear and well-defined tasks are critical for successful project execution.

Without them, team members may:

• Waste time trying to figure out what they should be working on
• Duplicate efforts by unknowingly working on the same things
• Miss important deliverables and deadlines
• Struggle to prioritize their work 
• Feel disconnected from the project’s overall goals and progress

This is where you would head to the “Planner” view in Scoro.

The “Planner” lets you drag and drop tasks from a list onto team members’ calendars to assign work and set deadlines.

But be sure to include team members in conversations about task assignments. This shows them that you care about their input and strengthens collaboration. And they may have insights about timelines, potential challenges, or resource needs that you haven’t considered. 

Imagine you’re managing a website redesign project. After speaking with UX designer Sarah about her workload, you can now: 

• Drag and drop the “UX Research” task to her schedule for the first week
• Create a new “Wireframe” task and assign it to her for the second week
• Add a “Visual Design” task for your graphic designer, Mike, scheduling it to start after Sarah’s wireframe is complete
• Adjust the duration of surrounding tasks if needed by simply resizing them in the visual interface

Check out our guide on resource scheduling for more info on assigning work to your project teams.

Use Scoro as your resource planning tool 

Tools like Scoro simplify resource planning. They are a central hub for all project information and team schedules, helping you make smarter, faster decisions about who’s working on what and when. 

Just take it from online marketing agency Stramark—the company saved over 15 hours a week by using Scoro features like the Planner. If you’re also ready to take control of your resource planning, give Scoro a try.