How to present staffing decisions that get executive approvals and drive business outcomes!

This post is part of my weekly series covering my Leadership Playbook that I have adopted and adapted over the years.

Once upon a time, I had to convince our executives to approve my resource allocation plan. It wasn’t just about moving people around, it was about aligning engineers across multiple initiatives while balancing growth projects, maintenance work, and platform migrations. Here’s the framework I have developed that turns a complex staffing puzzle into a compelling strategic narrative.

The Challenge: Multiple Competing Priorities

My situation was typical of many engineering leaders:

The Team: x engineers across different time zones.

• Y people transitioning to a new growth initiative
• Z backend engineers working on shared services
• 1 person on parental leave, 2 on performance improvement plan
• Various maintenance and platform migration commitments

The Priorities:

1. New growth initiative: A green field project, high executive visibility
2. Backend optimizations: Shared backend services supporting different internal product suite
3. Platform migration: Infrastructure modernization
4. Product maintenance: Customer escalations and security fixes

The Problem: How do you present this complexity to executives in a way that shows strategic thinking, not just resource shuffling?

The Four-Pillar Framework

After several iterations, I have developed a framework that resonates with leadership:

Pillar 1: Business Alignment Matrix

Instead of listing who works on what, I create a matrix showing how each allocation drives business outcomes:

Initiative	Team Members	Business Impact	Success Metrics
Backend optimisations	X, Y	Enable product growth	Performance improvements, reduced maintenance overhead

Why this works: Executives care about business outcomes first, technical details second. This matrix immediately shows the business rationale behind each decision.

Pillar 2: Risk Assessment and Mitigation

Every resource allocation has risks. Acknowledging them proactively builds credibility:

Identified Risks:

• X on parental leave: Product maintenance coverage gap
• Y on PIP: Potential team disruption and knowledge loss
• Senior Engineer split between 2 initiatives: Context switching overhead
• Z as buffer: Could be pulled in multiple directions

Mitigation Strategies:

• Cross-trained Z on product maintenance to cover X
• Documented Y’s work areas and created transition plan
• Limited Sr. SWE’s technical commitments to 20% with clear boundaries
• Established clear prioritization criteria for Z’s time

The lesson: Executives appreciate leaders who think ahead and plan for contingencies.

Pillar 3: Technical Excellence Rationale

This pillar explains why the technical approach supports business goals.

Shared Infrastructure Investment: “X and Y’s work on backend optimizations isn’t just maintenance, it’s strategic infrastructure investment. By optimizing our shared backend, we enable two teams to move faster. This shared foundation approach means one improvement benefits multiple product lines.”

Platform Migration Strategy: “The migration to modern infrastructure creates long-term competitive advantage by enabling rapid scaling and deployment flexibility. Z’s 20% allocation ensures we maintain momentum without disrupting progress on the new growth initiative.”

Knowledge Distribution: “Our team structure ensures no single person becomes a bottleneck. Y can cover product maintenance, Z can support the new growth initiative if needed, and our documentation practices mean knowledge is shared, not hoarded.”

Pillar 4: Team Development and Growth

This pillar shows how resource allocation serves dual purposes; business needs and people development.

Growth Opportunities:

• A, B, C, D: Exposure to green field development through the new growth initiative
• E: Technical depth in backend architecture and performance optimization
• F: Broader product knowledge through maintenance work
• G: Leadership opportunity managing product maintenance post-parental leave

Career Path Alignment: Each allocation considers individual career goals and development needs, not just immediate business requirements.

In the next week’s post I will talk about the presentation strategy.