Efficient resource planning in an agile environment

22.01.2025

Author: Sandra Gehrig

The scheduling and workload of our 50 or so experts in software development, UX/UI design and project management is one of the most challenging tasks in my role as COO at jls. I am proud of how, over the last three years, we have created not just a process but a system that allows us to work flexibly, efficiently and in a customer-centred way while ensuring a balanced workload for our employees.

A comparison illustrates the complexity of resource planning: the organisation of an airline fleet. Capacities must be optimally utilised and spontaneous changes must be handled flexibly. Clear processes and technology help us to remain efficient and avoid «empty flights».

The centrepiece of our resource management is the SaaS solution, Resource Guru, which gives us a real-time overview of who is available and who is booked on which project, including capacity limits. True to the motto «Practice what you Preach», one of the things that impressed us during the tool evaluation was the user-friendly UI.

In the weekly «resource planning meeting», Head of Project Management, Flavia, and Head of Development, Nicola, check the resource requests that come in during the week in the dedicated Teams channel and schedule the employees for projects. Our basic principles are«first come, first served», «stability is key» und «no one is above the rules».

We do not reserve resources without a contractual basis (or at least a written confirmation by email). People are only withdrawn from ongoing projects and rescheduled in urgent exceptional cases. Requests for specific staffing can be made, but the resource planning team makes the final decision on project allocation. This also applies to requests from customers that are handled directly by the management.

Not every resource request requires a centralised decision-making process. Minor shifts - for example, a project extension of 2-3 person days - are coordinated directly between the project managers concerned on a bilateral basis. This saves time, ensures faster decisions and promotes personal responsibility.

Conflicts in resource planning? Constantly. Two of the biggest challenges we have had to tackle in the last two years:

Incident support vs. project deadlines: as we also operate our solutions, it can happen that in the event of malfunctions in an app, 3rd level support has to be provided by a developer who is currently working on another customer project. This can lead to the current project falling behind schedule due to more complex incident support. To prevent such incidents, we now schedule key personnel with reduced capacities on a project (e.g. only 7 hours a day instead of 8) to create a buffer for unforeseen incidents.

Delivery Light Team: however, the clear planning rules combined with long project durations have meant that at times we have had no capacity available on the market for smaller campaign projects or ad-hoc innovations. This jeopardises our market position in the long term. To meet this challenge, we have introduced the «Delivery Light Team», which is specifically responsible for smaller projects. This enables us to react quickly to market needs and requests that do not fit into our long-term planning framework.

Our resource planning remains a continuous learning process. Our aim is to harmonise the needs of our customers and our teams. With the right technology and a clear, transparent process, we manage to harmonise these needs in the best possible way. Conflicts will not disappear, but they will be minimised through flexibility, communication and personal responsibility.

How do you organise resource planning in your teams?
Write to me using the contact form - I look forward to hearing from you.