The 4D-Planning is a structured methodical approach for the efficient organization of teams and projects in agencies. It offers clear dimensions to meet the complex requirements of day-to-day agency work.
The focus is on the parallel implementation of several projects in large teams, with adaptability and efficiency taking center stage. The aim is to streamline the daily work routine, make the weekly planning meeting efficient and create stress-free processes through clarity and flexibility.
4D-Planning at a glance
The method is based on four central dimensions that cover all relevant aspects of everyday agency life:
- Dimension Team:
Goal: Optimally utilizes the strengths and availability of team members.
Benefit: Reduces overload and ensures productive team collaboration.
- Dimension Project portfolio:
Goal: Organize and prioritize parallel projects efficiently.
Benefit: Ensures a clear overview and prevents project backlogs.
- Dimension Capacity planning:
Goal: Holistic management of resources for teams and projects.
Benefit: Bottlenecks are identified at an early stage and resolved efficiently.
- Dimension Changes:
Goal: Agile response to changes.
Benefit: Chaos is avoided and projects stay on track even in the event of changes.
What is it all about?
The organization of client projects and teams in agencies can be complex. And poor planning quickly leads to economic problems.
How well do agency projects perform?
Our experience from 500,000 projects shows that around 52% are not successful. This means that more time is spent than is included in the budget.
Why is that? There are often 3 central problems:
- Lack of overview: Without a real overview of all projects, capacities and status, there is a lack of orientation and projects get out of hand.
- Lack of resource planning: There is a lack of real overview of capacities, which leads to overload or inefficient allocation of resources.
- Poor communication: Misunderstandings or unclear coordination lead to delays and frustration.
Holistic planning is the key to solving these problems and successfully completing projects. With 4D-Planning, you can ensure that your team works profitably and projects stay on time and on budget.
[.b-important-block]On average, an agency works with 39 clients. Each client works on 4 different projects. Keeping an overview here and acting efficiently is crucial to success.[.b-important-block]
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Why you should use this method?
4D-Planning solves the central problems in everyday agency planning and offers clear advantages:
✅ Increased efficiency:
Thanks to optimized capacity planning and clear priorities, you save time, reduce the effort required for coordination and deploy your team profitably according to their skills.
✅ Transparency:
You maintain an overview of all projects, capacities and team structures in real time.
✅ Flexible controlling:
The method makes it possible to react agilely to changes within the team as well as in the project portfolio.
✅ Satisfied teams and customers:
Clear processes and transparent communication promote motivation and improve collaboration.
✅ Risk minimization:
Bottlenecks and planning errors are identified at an early stage and countermeasures are safely initiated.
The 4 dimensions: The core of the method
4D-Planning is build on 4 central dimensions that structure everyday agency life and help to meet agile challenges. By using these dimensions, you can ensure that your planning is clearly structured, realistic and efficient.
Each dimension provides essential information and gives you the basis for making decisions with confidence. These dimensions are not only important individually, but their interactions allow you to react flexibly to any challenge in the planning process.
In this way, you benefit from an agile process that adapts to the real situation without losing sight of the big picture.
1. The team setup: Transparency about capacities, roles and skills
Dimension Team: Why is it important?
The success of a project depends largely on how well you know and utilize the capacities, roles and skills of your team. To ensure that tasks are distributed efficiently, overload is avoided and duplication of work is prevented, you need a clear overview of the real availability of each team member.
Base load vs. real capacity:
Many teams underestimate the difference between theoretical and actual available working hours. If you only consider the contractual weekly hours but ignore meetings, administrative tasks or absences, you risk unrealistic schedules and overload. Transparent capacity planning ensures a better distribution of tasks, increases efficiency and raises team satisfaction.
- Base load: The base load is the total working time that a team member theoretically has available. This includes regular working hours without taking into account deductions such as absences or meetings.
- Real capacity: The real capacity is the actual time a team member has available for project-related work. It is calculated by subtracting vacation days, sick days, scheduled meetings and time for administrative tasks from the basic workload.
The roles of your team
Different tasks require different capacities. A junior copywriter needs more time for the same task than a senior, while an experienced developer implements complex requirements more efficiently. Record all roles and skill levels of your team in order to make relevant classifications.
Goal: Optimal resource utilization for productive teams
The main goal is to deploy team members optimally based on their strengths and availability. This is not just about working hours, but also about making targeted use of individual skills and reacting flexibly to new requirements.
How do you implement this?
1. Realistically record capacities:
- List the working hours of each team member - from full-time employees to part-time employees or working students.
- Document planned absences such as vacations and plan buffers for sick days.
- Subtract the time for meetings and routine activities from the total working time to calculate the real capacity.
2. Create transparency about skills and roles:
- Record which skills your team has in order to distribute tasks in a targeted manner.
- Assign roles flexibly in order to react quickly to new requirements.
3. Use a central planning tool:
- Record all information in a planning tool that displays availabilities, absences and skills in real time.
Result: More efficiency, less overload
A transparent capacity overview and targeted role allocation ensure that your team is productive and motivated. You avoid unrealistic schedules, promote collaboration and set up your team profitably.
2. The Project portfolio: Overview of all current and planned projects
Dimension Project portfolio: Why is it important?
Successful project management requires a clear overview of all current and planned projects. Only if you have an overview of dependencies, deadlines and available resources can you set priorities sensibly and identify bottlenecks at an early stage. Without centralized control, you risk inefficient use of resources, missed deadlines and project backlogs.
Goal: Efficient management of parallel projects
The aim of a structured project portfolio is to efficiently manage and prioritize all projects in parallel. It helps to allocate resources optimally, take dependencies into account and ensure that important milestones are met.
How do you implement this?
1. Create a central overview
- Record all current and planned projects in a portfolio tool.
- Record deadlines, budgets and dependencies transparently.
2. Calculate efforts and resources realistically:
- Break projects down into specific tasks and estimate the time required for each task.
- Plan budgets and ensure that cost-effective implementation is guaranteed.
- Allow buffer times for unforeseen events.
3.Set clear priorities:
- Prioritize projects based on customer expectations, strategic goals or deadlines.
- Identify potential bottlenecks and react early.
4. Use a digital portfolio tool:
- Monitor the progress, status and priorities of all projects in real time.
- Identify bottlenecks early and optimize your resource allocation.
Result: structure instead of chaos
A well-organized project portfolio ensures transparency, prevents planning errors and makes it easier to manage multiple projects in parallel. This ensures that resources are used wisely, deadlines are met and economic goals are achieved.
3. Capacity planning: efficient connection of team and projects
Dimension Capacity planning: Why is it important?
Well thought-out capacity planning ensures that projects are implemented on time and resources are used optimally. Only if you link the availability, skills and workload of your team with the project requirements can you avoid bottlenecks and distribute tasks sensibly. Without dynamic planning, you risk overloads and inefficient processes.
Goal: Effective management of capacities for teams and projects
The aim of capacity planning is to assign team members to the right projects based on their skills and actual availability. This allows you to distribute the workload evenly, react flexibly to changes and prevent projects from coming to a standstill.
How do you implement this?
1. Link team and project capacities:
- Record the availability, roles and skills of your team centrally.
- Assign team members to the right projects based on priorities and requirements.
2. Include real capacities:
- Consider not only contractual working hours, but also deduct vacations, sick days and meetings.
- Plan reserve capacity to cover unforeseen requirements without stress.
3. Use workload visualization tools:
- Use a planning tool that gives you real-time data on capacity utilization.
- Monitor workloads to avoid overloads or underutilized resources.
4. Make dynamic adjustments:
- Review capacity planning weekly and adjust it based on current developments.
- Respond flexibly to project shifts and new priorities.
Result: Structured planning instead of chaos
With clear capacity planning, you maintain an overview of team availability and project requirements. You reduce bottlenecks, ensure a fair distribution of the workload and create stress-free collaboration.
4. Flexible changes: remain adaptable in the face of change
Dimension Changes in planning: Why is it important?
Changes are inevitable in everyday agency life - be it due to new customer requirements, market changes or internal team changes. Rigid planning quickly leads to chaos and inefficient processes. Those who remain flexible can master challenges with confidence and keep projects on track even in the event of unforeseen changes.
Goal: Be prepared for every change
The aim of flexible controlling is to recognize deviations from the plan in good time and implement adjustments efficiently. Agile planning allows you to react quickly to internal and external changes without losing sight of the big picture.
What influences your planning?
- External factors: Customers change the scope of the project, market conditions shift priorities or deadlines are brought forward.
- Internal factors: Sickness absence, unforeseen absences or overestimation of resources lead to deviations from the plan.
These factors make static planning impossible - the ability to adapt quickly becomes a decisive advantage.
How do you implement this?
1. Proactive planning for change:
- Consider potential changes in team structure or project scope from the outset.
- Always have a buffer ready to handle short-term adjustments without stress.
2. Establish iterative planning cycles:
- Rely on regular updates and weekly check-ins to identify potential problems at an early stage.
- Respond flexibly to changes by dynamically adjusting tasks, budgets and timings. If all information is centrally available, you can quickly develop and implement alternatives.
3. Ensure transparent communication:
- Inform customers and the team about changes in a timely manner to avoid misunderstandings and build trust.
- Actively manage customer expectations by responding flexibly to new requirements.
4. Use digital tools to support:
- Monitor capacity in real time to identify bottlenecks early.
- Dynamically reassign tasks when conditions change.
[.b-important-block]Flexibility means being prepared and being able to act immediately when it matters.[.b-important-block]
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Result: Stability despite change
With flexible controlling, you can react quickly to unexpected developments without jeopardizing the success of the project. Regular adjustments, transparent communication and agile processes ensure that your team remains efficient even in dynamic environments.
This 4D-Planning provides a clear structure for making the best use of team capacities, organizing projects efficiently and reacting flexibly to changes.
If you integrate it into your day-to-day planning, you will benefit from stress-free processes, shorter meetings and increasing satisfaction - both with your team and with your customers.
For whom have we developed this method?
This method is aimed at people in the agency and planning business who have to organize many teams with numerous projects. It is particularly suitable for agile customer projects that need to be implemented efficiently and profitably.
Thanks to our many years of experience in the project business and more than 500,000 customer projects implemented in awork, we are able to deduce what really makes projects successful. All of this knowledge has been incorporated into the development of the 4D-Planning.
Best practice
We know that things rarely go exactly according to plan - spontaneous changes are part of day-to-day business in agencies. This makes it all the more important to be able to deal with the most common problems. With this method, you will build the basis for being able to react quickly to changes in customer requirements or team changes.
Using our scenarios, we will show you how to solve typical agency use cases with the help of the 4D-Planning.
Scenario: Half the team is not there 🤯
POV: Monday morning. You open your laptop and the week starts straight away with challenges: A colleague is on vacation, two employees are sick, and important projects are pressing. Your planning is on a knife edge.
Problem dimension: Team
Influenced dimension: Capacity planning
How do you proceed?
- Get an overview: Check your current capacity planning. Which projects and tasks are affected? Which deadlines are critical?
- Check skills: Identify whether other team members can take on the open tasks. Consider their skills and availability.
- Set priorities: Decide which projects and tasks have the highest priority. Postpone less urgent tasks to free up capacity.
- Reassign tasks: rearrange tasks, adjust deadlines and make sure there is no overload.
- Use backup: If the team is overloaded, bring in external support such as freelancers.
- Communication: Inform your team about the changes. Clear and fast communication avoids misunderstandings and ensures a smooth process.
Next-level capacity planning with awork
- Transparency: Sick days, vacations and availabilities are immediately visible. You can see at a glance which tasks need to be redistributed.
- Efficient distribution: With just a few clicks, you can move tasks and adjust deadlines without losing track.
- Visual management: The workload bar shows you immediately if someone is overbooked so that you can take countermeasures in good time.
- Early warnings: Bottlenecks are automatically highlighted so that you can react quickly and inform customers in good time.
Result: With a structured approach and the right tools, you can master even unexpected challenges and ensure a stress-free start to the week.
[.b-related-article]Typical problems in capacity planning - and the solution[.b-related-article]
Summary and tips
👉 Real overview: Invest time in setting up the team and project portfolio dimensions. This will provide you with the basis for efficient planning.
👉 Optimise everyday planning: Shorter meetings and stress-free planning ensure a productive working atmosphere.
👉 Maintain flexibility: React quickly to changes and benefit from the method by being able to easily adapt plans.
👉 Customer integration: Involve customers in projects to reduce communication effort and increase their satisfaction.
👉 Check regularly: Continuously check the project status and stay on track.
This 4D-Planning lays the foundation for efficient and transparent planning that will delight both your team and your customers.
