The "Gut Feel" Trap: 5 Telltale Signs Your Capacity Planning

Can you confidently staff that new project that just landed? For many firm partners, the answer isn’t a confident "Yes." It’s a "gut feel" based on a quick glance at a spreadsheet that hasn't been updated since last Tuesday.

This works when you are small. But as you scale, you get caught in the "Spreadsheet Shuffle"—juggling outdated files just to figure out who is free. This leads to burnout and hidden revenue leakage.

Here are five signs your capacity planning is broken:

1. Your "Single Source of Truth" is a Lie. 

If you have to ask three project managers to "confirm their data" before trusting your master spreadsheet, you don't have a planning tool; you have a static list. If your data isn't real-time, you aren't planning—you're reacting.

2. Staffing is a Fire Drill. 

When new work lands, is it a strategic assignment or a scramble? Without centralized skills data, you risk assigning senior resources to junior roles just to plug a hole, eroding your margin immediately.

3. You Confuse "Busy" with "Billable." 

This is the one most firms miss. Your team is swamped, but revenue doesn't match. Without visibility into billable vs. non-billable utilization, you cannot distinguish between "busy work" and "profitable work".

4. Meetings Are Just Status Updates. 

If you spend the first 45 minutes of a leadership meeting asking "Who is working on X?", your cadence is broken. Operational maturity means meetings are for decisions, not discovery.

5. "What-If" Blindness. 

If answering "Can we take this project?" requires a manual deep-dive, you lack foresight. You need to simulate the domino effect of new work before signing the contract.

Stop the Shuffle. You don't need a better spreadsheet. You need a nervous system that connects Cadence (how you decide) with Capacity (how you staff).

Which of these signs feels most familiar in your firm right now?

If you’re still staffing by “gut feel,” it’s time to stop the revenue leak. Join our early access list to explore ALTA’s Capacity Planning Playbook.

👉 Request Access to Our Strategic Capacity Framework