A staffing plan for the project team: who arrives and leaves at each phase
The structure coordinator is due to move to another job next month. The project schedule still shows their tasks, but nobody has assigned the envelope interfaces they are carrying. The staffing budget has an end date; the workload has no handover.
Plan the salaried project team by phase, showing which roles are needed, their share of time, arrival and departure dates, and the work they must hand over. Cost the plan against general conditions and review it when the phase forecast changes. This is the project team’s staffing plan, not the trade crew manpower curve. It connects the office’s resource decisions with the coordination and control duties the job still needs.
Plan capacity and transitions together
- Map the phase duties. Identify coordination, supervision, document control, commercial review, testing and closeout needs through mobilization, structure, envelope, fit-out and handover. Show overlaps rather than assuming each phase ends before another begins.
- Assign roles before names. Decide the duties and competence required, then confirm who is available. This helps expose a capacity gap even when the company has already pencilled in a familiar person.
- Show time shares and competing work. Record a full-time or agreed shared allocation for each phase. Check shared people with the operations manager so several projects do not each assume they have the same person available.
- Cost the dated plan consistently. Use the company’s agreed salary and on-cost basis, with the controller checking treatment. Include planned overlaps and cover. Compare like with like against the general conditions allowance and state remaining uncertainty.
- Attach a handover to each departure. List the open decisions, records, contacts and duties to transfer. Name the receiving person and allow time for questions before the outgoing person becomes unavailable.
- Review when the work moves. At a phase change, compare remaining duties with the current schedule and budget. Explain whether keeping, adding or releasing a role changes the forecast and seek the appropriate resource decision.
Common mistakes
- Planning a departure by budget month without checking remaining duties.
- Giving a shared person overlapping full-time commitments.
- Costing salaries but omitting planned cover or handover overlap.
Checklist
For each salaried role
- Duties and competence needed by phase.
- Confirmed person and time allocation.
- Start, transition and release dates.
- Consistent cost basis and forecast effect.
- Receiving owner for unfinished duties.
Check your understanding
The phase slips by a month, but the coordinator’s release date remains fixed. Is the staffing plan current?
