Here’s the Uncomfortable Truth: Most “Resource Plans” are Hope With a Spreadsheet

We see it every week. A beautiful plan gets signed off in Delivery Planning & Design…and then the staffing lines are “TBD”, “0.5 FTE”, or my favourite: “Jane will be free in May.” That’s not a plan, that’s hope-based resourcing. And it’s the quiet killer of delivery predictability.

What it looks like
– Named-in-theory, ghost-in-practice roles (“Architect: TBC after vendor confirms SOW”).
– Fractional allocations that ignore context switching (three 0.3s ≠ one 0.9).
– Capacity assumed from future attrition, future automation, or future approvals.
– A portfolio that schedules around dates, not around real constraints and interdependencies.

Why it bites later
– Slippage masquerades as “scope refinement.”
– Benefits drift because the specialists arrive after the moment that mattered.
– Vendors optimise for their staffing, not your outcomes (because no one locked decision rights or milestones against actual capacity).

What good looks like (Rainman Strategic Change Framework)
– Strategic Diagnosis → Concept & Value Case: quantify the value at stake with the people who must deliver it.
– Delivery Planning & Design: swap “names on boxes” for hard, time-bound commitments (by name, by skill, by sprint/cycle). Lock decision rights and stopping rules before “go-to-deliver.”
– Implementation & Control: one cadence, one source of truth; variance triggers capacity trades, not optimism.
– Transition & Benefits Realisation: benefits owners stay on the hook until value lands in BAU.

Five-question test
– Whose time, by name, have we contractually secured for the next 90 days?
– What work stops if they’re not available next week?
– Which milestones are contingent on external approvals we don’t control?
– Where are we paying for outcomes (not effort) in vendor contracts?
– What’s our pre-agreed stop rule if capacity falls below the threshold?

If your answer to any of these is “we expect…”, you’re still in hope. Swap hope for commitments, and watch delivery velocity (and trust) lift.