What is the difference between short-term and long-term resource forecasting?

Short-term forecasting (0–30 days) focuses on tactical execution, assigning specific named individuals to immediate tasks to ensure coverage. Long-term forecasting (60–90+ days) focuses on strategic capacity planning, using role-based placeholders to identify hiring needs and aggregate availability trends against the sales pipeline.

How do we forecast resources for tentative projects that haven't closed?

Use soft bookings or placeholders weighted by the deal's probability. For example, if a project has a 75% chance of closing, reserve the estimated capacity as a tentative allocation. This flags potential demand without fully committing resources, helping teams avoid overbooking while staying flexible.

How often should we update our resource forecast?

Weekly updates are important for operational accuracy, allowing project managers to adjust near-term allocations based on real progress. Strategic reviews focused on hiring plans and pipeline capacity should be conducted monthly to support leadership decisions.

What is the difference between billable utilization and productive utilization?

Billable utilization measures time spent on revenue-generating work. Productive utilization includes billable work plus valuable non-billable activities such as training, internal initiatives, or business development. Effective forecasting should consider both to reflect how teams actually create long-term value.

Blog

Resource Management

Blog posts on project resource management for optimizing resource allocation

Resource Management

6 min read

Resource forecasting for agencies and consulting teams: A 30/60/90 day guide

Learn agency resource forecasting: capacity vs availability, demand + weighted pipeline, key mistakes, and a ...

Product News

1 min read

Introducing Local public holidays

Help teams plan work more realistically by accounting for regional holidays at the individual user ...

Resource Management

9 min read

A comprehensive guide to resource management systems for professional services teams

Discover top resource management systems of 2026 and how they help professional services teams plan ...

Product News

1 min read

Assign unassigned activities while seeing the team workload

See unassigned activities directly in Workload. Assign work faster, balance team capacity, and keep workload ...

Resource Management

7 min read

How to prevent resource overbooking: A practical guide

Discover workflows, real-time capacity planning, and tools to prevent overallocation and improve project delivery.

Professional Services

5 min read

Understanding utilization, profitability, and forecasting dashboards: what they show and how...

Service firms run on three questions: Are your people busy enough? Are your projects making ...

Resource Management

4 min read

How resource management improves project profitability

A practical guide to turning role-based planning, real capacity, and clean time-to-invoice flows into higher ...

Resource Management

6 min read

Resolve resource conflicts and prioritize projects: a tactical playbook

Learn to manage resource conflicts and prioritize projects for optimal allocation with our step-by-step playbook. ...

Resource Management

5 min read

A practical guide to managing unnamed roles in project planning

Learn how to manage unnamed roles and resource placeholders in project planning to improve forecasting, ...

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