A project has budget but no people. Can it be considered approved to start?
Funding-capacity mismatchDistinguish investment approval from authorization to mobilize. Confirm that the required skills and time are available before promising delivery based only on funding.
What to do now
- Identify the required roles and timing
- Check actual resource availability
- Resolve conflicts or acquisition lead time
- Approve an achievable mobilization date
When to escalate
Escalate when
The start commitment relies on capacity that has not been secured.
Who decides
The resource owner and project manager
Example
A funded initiative waits for an agreed integration team slot before committing its delivery schedule.
Mistake to avoid
Treating budget approval as proof that staffing exists.
Prevent a repeat
Review overload and bottlenecks at the person or skill level before adding more commitments.
Suggested ApprovedFlow setup
- Resources
- Tasks
- Timesheets
Compare available capacity, assigned task work and actual recorded effort using the enabled resource and timesheet views. See the platform
Related cases
- When should we release resources from a project?Unclear demobilization
- We cannot tell who is overloaded because people do not update timesheets. What can we use?Incomplete capacity evidence
- Our project depends on a funding approval that is not confirmed. Can work begin?Unfunded commitment risk
- We have more approved projects than people to deliver them. What should leadership do?Portfolio overload