What is resource planning?
Resource planning looks ahead. Where resource management deals with this week's bookings, resource planning asks what the next quarter needs: how many shoot days are coming, how much edit capacity, which skills, and whether the current team and freelance bench can cover it. The output is a forecast of demand set against capacity, with the gaps marked, so hiring, freelance bookings and project start dates can be decided while there is still time.
For an agency, the input is the pipeline as much as the signed work. A project that is likely to land in eight weeks needs a place in the plan now, as a placeholder, or it will arrive to a fully booked team.
Why it matters
Why resource planning matters
Most agency crunches are visible weeks in advance, if anyone looks. Three proposals out, all for the spring; a seasonal campaign due at the same time; a key editor's vacation already booked. Resource planning puts those facts on one view and turns a future crisis into a present decision: book the freelancers now, stagger the start dates, or tell a client that a later date will get them a better result.
It also tells you when to hire, and when not to. A busy month is not a reason to add headcount. A busy quarter, forecast honestly, might be.
In practice
How resource planning works in practice
- 01
Build the demand forecast from three sources: signed projects with their phases and roles, likely projects weighted by probability, and seasonal work that arrives at the same time every year. Express it in roles and hours per week (two editors for three weeks in March, say) rather than in projects. Then set it against capacity: staff hours after holidays and admin, plus the freelancers you can reliably book.
- 02
Review the plan monthly with the leadership team, and adjust it weekly as projects are won, lost or moved. The useful output is short: the weeks where demand exceeds capacity, the roles that cause it and the decision for each. Everything else is detail.
At RIOT
Resource planning at RIOT
Some of our work is set by the calendar. Holiday films for Coach, the holiday window films for Tiffany & Co. and season trailers for the Washington Commanders all have dates that the season decides, not us. Seasonal work like that is the easiest kind to plan and the most expensive to forget. Krova, our production software, keeps bids, schedules, budgets and delivery for every job in one place, so the seasonal films and the one-offs sit on the same calendar.
Watch out
What people get wrong about resource planning
Planning only the signed work. By the time a contract is signed, the best freelancers are booked. Weight the pipeline and plan for it. The second mistake is planning in projects instead of roles. Four projects in March sounds fine until you notice all four need the same colorist in the same week.
And planning at full capacity. Leave room for the work you cannot see yet; it always arrives.
