Agree the test
Name and weight five to seven organisational priorities before the inventory begins. They become the shared test for value – and can be revisited once the work is visible.
Resource-based transformation
Make the work visible.Then make the choices.
Resource Optimisation is RedQuadrant’s inside-out method for showing where effort really goes, testing it against purpose, and making better choices with the people who know the work.
Built for public-service pressuresEvidence before reorganisationCapability stays with your team
Where it fits
An inside-out view, held against the outside world.
Resource Optimisation starts inside the organisation: the actual work, its resource, cost, value, dependencies, and capability. It tests that picture against purpose, demand, outcomes, and the experience of people who use the service. It complements our outside-in work – and corrects the habit of starting with the structure.
Outside in
See the system from the person’s purpose.
- Need and demand
- Journey and experience
- Value and outcomes
Shared testPurposeOutcomesService flow connects both views
Inside out
See the organisation through its work.
- Work packages
- Resource and cost
- Capability and dependencies
PurposeNeedDemandProfessional dutyResourceOutcomesExperience
The method
A disciplined conversation about all the work.
A work package is narrower than a programme and wider than a task: a recognisable piece of work with a purpose, owner, resource requirement, and consequence. The right level emerges through comparison and discussion – roughly right is more useful than precisely wrong.
WhyProgramme or outcome
WhatWork packageThe unit of choice
HowActivity or task
Account for the work
Build the picture from both directions: everything the organisation says it does, and everything people actually spend time doing. Together, the work packages should account for 100% of available time.
Judge it together
Test each package for importance, discretion, demand, cost, risk, dependencies, capability, location, timing, and the consequences of using more or less resource.
Choose – then keep managing
Make explicit choices package by package, aggregate the implications, assign owners, and turn the analysis into an ongoing way to manage workload, handovers, cover, capability, and benefits.
The Seven Ts
Seven choices, not one blunt cut.
Every work package earns an explicit decision. The point is not to force everything towards ‘less’, but to put capacity where it creates most value.
Tolerate but tweak
Continue, with small and purposeful adjustments.
Trim
Reduce effort or service level deliberately.
Transform
Redesign how the outcome is achieved.
Transfer
Move the work with ownership and consequences clear.
Terminate
Stop the work and manage the effects.
Timescales
Defer, sequence, speed up, or slow down.
Take on
Add work explicitly, with the capacity it needs.
The wider system
Resource is one lever. Good transformation sees all seven.
Resource Optimisation sits within RedQuadrant’s Seven Ways to Save and Improve: an opportunity map across the whole service system. It helps diagnose where to act; it is not a guaranteed list of savings.
OutsideDemand
→InterfaceContact
→WorkProcess / project
→InsideResources
01Shape demand
02Economies of flow
03Reduce waste
04Optimise resources
05Economies of organisationOrganise around the work
06Optimise procurementMake better source and market choices
Deep team engagement
The data gets sharper when the room gets wiser.
The people closest to the work know where the system catches: hand-offs, seasonal peaks, duplicate checks, unofficial fixes, and capability gaps. Workshops, interviews, and practical data capture turn that lived knowledge into a shared, testable model.
The inventory is deliberately unglamorous. That is what makes the choices defensible.
We can lead the work, coach an internal team, or build a blended delivery group. Either way, facilitation matters as much as the model: people should recognise the picture, challenge it, and own what happens next.
What you get
Not a report about work. A way to decide and manage it.
You leave with
- 01A validated inventory of work packages
- 02A resource, cost, value, and capability view
- 03Priorities, choices, risks, and dependencies
- 04Clear owners and organisation-wide implications
- 05A practical route into benefits tracking
- 06A living system for work allocation and visibility
Ways to start
Scope it around the decision you need to make.
Team or function
Prove the method on a contained area and make immediate workload choices.
Service or directorate
Compare packages, dependencies, capacity, and capability across boundaries.
Whole organisation
Build a common evidence base for a savings, redesign, or operating-model portfolio.
The RedQuadrant range
Resource Optimisation is one doorway into a wider practice.
There is no single RedQuadrant methodology. We choose and combine lenses around the real situation, while keeping purpose, evidence, participation, and capability transfer constant.
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Explore all RedQuadrant services Outside-in service transformation
Start with people’s purpose, need, demand, and lived journey, then reshape the service around what creates value.
Flow, process, and capacity
Expose queues, failure demand, hand-offs, rework, and workarounds – then test a better flow in practice.
Organisation and operating models
Derive roles, governance, capabilities, technology, and data from purpose and work – not from the current chart.
Commissioning and markets
Clarify outcomes, understand the system, shape better relationships, and make deliberate sourcing and procurement choices.
Systems, strategy, and place
Work with boundaries, feedback, power, perspectives, and uncertainty to build action across organisations and communities.
Digital and data-enabled change
Use technology and evidence in service of a better operating model and experience – never as the transformation by itself.
Leadership, learning, and delivery
Combine live delivery, coaching, academies, and rapid prototyping so capability grows while the work gets done.
Start with the pressure
Before you cut, absorb, or reorganise – see the work.
Tell us where capacity is stretched, where choices are stuck, and what evidence decision-makers need. We will help you judge whether Resource Optimisation is the right starting lens.