Two Projects, One Drafting Pool, and a Hard Deliverable
A 12-person firm has two projects hitting production simultaneously. Project A is a school renovation with a state-mandated submittal date in 6 weeks; missing it pushes the project a full year. Project B is a private office building with a flexible but contractually dated 8-week deliverable. The firm has 4 production staff. The resource-loaded plan shows Project A needs 3.5 full-time equivalents for 6 weeks and Project B needs 2.5 FTEs over 8 weeks - 6 FTEs of demand against 4 available. The principal who sold both projects insists 'the team always finds a way.' Overtime is available but two staff are part-time and one has scheduled leave in weeks 3-4. Project B's client has been slow on decisions and is likely to slip anyway.
1. Quantify the resource gap and evaluate the options available. What is the recommended allocation and why?
Read the worked answer
The gap. Demand is 3.5 FTE x 6 weeks = 21 FTE-weeks for A, plus 2.5 x 8 = 20 FTE-weeks for B, total 41 FTE-weeks. Supply is 4 FTE x 8 weeks = 32 FTE-weeks, reduced by the leave (roughly 1 FTE-week) to about 31. The shortfall is roughly 10 FTE-weeks - about 25% of demand. 'Finding a way' means either overtime, outside help, scope deferral, or a slipped date; those are the only real options.
Options weighed:
- Overtime alone: 10 FTE-weeks is about 400 hours. Spread over 4 staff for 8 weeks that is ~12.5 extra hours each per week - sustained and risky, and impossible for the part-time staff. It also degrades quality on a code-heavy school project.
- Contract labor: viable for production drafting on B, where standards are simpler; carries onboarding cost.
- Defer B: B's client is already slow, so its date is soft. Negotiating a phased or extended B deliverable frees capacity.
- Protect A absolutely: the year-long consequence makes A non-negotiable.
Recommendation. Ring-fence 3.5 FTE for A for 6 weeks. Staff B with the remaining 0.5 FTE plus contract production support, and formally renegotiate B's date or phase it, using its client's decision delays as documented justification. Use modest overtime as a buffer, not as the plan.
2. The principal rejects any conversation with Project B's client and forbids contract labor as 'too expensive.' How do you respond, and what do you document?
Read the worked answer
Reframe the principal's objection as a cost comparison, because 'too expensive' is currently unquantified.
- Cost of contract labor is a known, bounded number for the FTE-weeks needed.
- Cost of the alternative - burning the team to cover a 25% gap with no outside help - shows up as errors, rework, missed submittal quality on the school, overtime premium, and attrition risk on staff the firm cannot easily replace. On a state-reviewed school project, a rejected submittal is a schedule event, not just a fee event.
- Cost of silence with B's client is a missed contractual date with no documented excuse, when the client's own decision delays are on record.
Response: present the arithmetic in writing, state that you cannot guarantee both dates on current resources, and ask the principal to choose among the priced options - contract support, B renegotiation, or accepting documented risk on A. A PM's job is to make the trade-off explicit and owned by the person with authority.
Document: the resource-loaded analysis, the leave and part-time constraints, the options with costs, the principal's decision and date, and the risk accepted. If the principal still refuses, the record protects the firm and the PM when the gap materializes. Do not simply absorb the gap and hope.