Introduction: Living the Allocated Life
As a consultant, resource allocation is just part of my reality. I’m allocated all the time—to clients, projects, meetings, bids, and tenders. Some weeks, I’m juggling so many allocations I have to play catch-up just to keep up with myself.
And it’s not just me. I allocate time for the consultants in my team, too. It’s something we generally try to approach as a mutual decision—asking people if they’re up for it, checking if they already have too much on their plate, and working together to make sure their workload is sustainable. It’s not perfect, but we try to make it work for everyone involved.
When done thoughtfully, allocation is a tool for progress. It helps us focus, prioritize, and deliver value where it’s needed most. But here’s the thing: resource allocation doesn’t always work this way. Sometimes, it feels less like a plan and more like a roadblock—a bureaucratic mess that stops progress in its tracks.
People Aren’t Pie Charts
Let’s get one thing straight: people aren’t percentages. They’re not pie charts you can slice into neat, even chunks and expect everything to just work.
Take me, for example. On paper, I might be allocated 50% to Project X and 50% to Project Y. But in reality? That’s never how it plays out. Splitting my time perfectly between two projects or clients rarely makes sense.
When I tackle a task for Project X, I don’t think, “Oh, I’ve hit 4 hours today—time to switch gears.” No. I try to keep going until it’s finished or until I’ve made meaningful progress, but I hve to admit that don’t always succeed. That might mean spending a week fully focused on X and then pivoting to Y. I aim not for 50/50 every day—it’s 100/0 for a while, then swapping priorities as needed.
The Context Switching Trap
Every time you switch from one task to another, there’s a cost. Your brain needs to recalibrate, refocus, and get back into the flow. Do that once or twice, and it’s manageable—maybe even refreshing. But do it too often, and you’re stuck in a perpetual loop of getting started on things without ever finishing them.
Here’s what that looks like in practice:
- You spend an hour diving into Project X, just starting to hit your stride. But wait—there’s an online meeting for Project Y.
- After the meeting, you try to pick up where you left off in Project X, but now your flow is gone, and you waste 20 minutes just remembering where you were.
- Repeat this process a few times, and by the end of the day, you’ve made zero meaningful progress on either project.
It’s exhausting, demoralizing, and completely avoidable—and if it doesn’t stop, it will burn you out.
When Allocation Blocks Progress
But the real frustration comes when allocation stops enabling value creation and starts preventing it.
Picture this: there’s a clear blocker slowing down progress. You’ve identified it, you have the skills to solve it, and it would probably take you less than a day. But no—you’re “not allocated” to that task. You’re allocated to something else, so the blocker stays put, dragging everything else down with it.
Or how about this one: smaller teams squabbling over who gets allocated to what, treating resources like a zero-sum game where the winner gets the biggest budget slice. Never mind the actual goals or outcomes—what matters is locking down as many bodies as possible, just in case someone asks them to deliver something meaningful.
When Resource Allocation Becomes a Circus
You’d think resource allocation would be a tool for better planning and prioritization. But in reality, it often feels like a bad comedy sketch, complete with absurd scenarios that would be hilarious if they weren’t so counterproductive.
Take these recent highlights from the allocation circus of my life:
1. Allocated More Than 100%
Ah, the classic: “Can you work 120% of your time this month?”
Sure, because I’ve secretly been hiding my 25th hour of the day. Even better, this was for a client I wasn’t even contractually obligated to work full-time for. On top of the absurdly large allocation, it was spread across three teams: 50%, 50%, and 20%. Nothing screams professionalism quite like that.
2. Meetings as a Full-Time Job
Then there are the people who are 100% allocated to… attending recurring meetings. You know the type—they’re in every session, nodding along, maybe chiming in with a vague, “We should align on this.”
But when it comes to actual work? Crickets. Their entire allocation is burned in online-meeting limbo, siphoning the budget like a black hole.
3. The Ballooning Allocation Illusion
Here’s a good one: watching management allocate an unsustainable number of people to a project and then act surprised when value production doesn’t scale linearly.
“Wait, why aren’t we delivering 3x more output with 3x more allocation?”
Gee, I don’t know—maybe because you’ve created a group of burned-out, context-switching zombies who can’t focus long enough to get anything done.
4. The Phantom Allocations
This one’s one of my favorites: people who are allocated to a project but never show up. Weeks go by with no sign of them, and then, magically, they appear for their 10% allocation.
What do they contribute during that glorious 10%? Not much. By the time they’re caught up, it’s already time for them to vanish again. It’s like trying to build a house with a contractor who only shows up every third Wednesday.
5. The Allocation Mystery
And finally, the pièce de résistance: when people don’t even know if or how much they’re allocated to a project.
At that point, why even bother pretending resource allocation matters? If you don’t know where your time is going, maybe just call it what it is: chaos management.
Reflection: When Allocation Stops Adding Value
The problem with these scenarios isn’t just inefficiency—it’s the message they send. Instead of enabling progress, resource allocation often becomes a game of optics:
- Over-allocate people to show how “dedicated” the team is.
- Pack meetings to justify everyone’s presence.
- Balloon allocations to impress stakeholders, then wonder why nothing gets done.
This isn’t planning—it’s posturing. And it’s the kind of posturing that kills momentum, creativity, and morale faster than you can say “alignment meeting.”
Conclusion: Stop the Circus
If any of this sounds familiar, it’s time to rethink how you’re approaching resource allocation. Stop treating people like numbers in a spreadsheet and start empowering them to focus on what actually matters.
Because at the end of the day, resource allocation isn’t about squeezing more hours out of people—it’s about creating the conditions where real work can happen. Close the tent, cancel the clowns, and let people focus on what really matters—doing their best work, not juggling arbitrary percentages.