From staffing to a central management platform
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Increasing complexity in staffing
Staffing client projects effectively
As slashwhy continued to grow, the complexity of project staffing increased significantly: Which developers, UX designers, and agile coaches should be assigned to which client projects and when? Who is proficient in which technologies, and how can an ideal team be assembled for a specific project? As a software development partner, slashwhy relies on precise staffing: the optimal alignment of skills and experience with project requirements while ensuring high utilization.
For a long time, this staffing process was managed manually using extensive Excel spreadsheets, later supplemented by Confluence. This resulted in high maintenance effort, increasing error rates, and limited transparency. At the same time, as the number of employees grew, it became increasingly difficult for business managers, who are responsible for individual business units, to maintain a clear overview of skills and experience across the organization. Since staffing spans across business units, this also led to a high level of coordination effort.
Making skills visible & identifying needs
A skill portal to support staffing & upskilling
In response to these challenges, the idea of an internal skill portal emerged, enabling employees to maintain their own skills and experience. The goal was to make existing expertise within the company visible and searchable, thereby providing targeted support for staffing.
At the same time, the vision extended beyond staffing alone: The tool was also intended to support talent development by identifying strategic gaps in specific technologies at an early stage. In addition, employees should be able to indicate their training needs, position themselves as experts in certain topics, and actively seek professional knowledge exchange with colleagues to learn from each other.
Alongside business managers, this made People & Culture as well as employees themselves key user groups of the planned solution.
For us, /skills is a key building block for managing slashwhy in a data-driven way. It creates transparency around resources, skills, and projects and enables us to make significantly better-informed decisions.
Dr. Joachim Wilharm
Managing Director at slashwhy
In the past, we maintained information across multiple Excel spreadsheets and other tools in parallel. Today, everything is managed centrally in /skills. This saves us well over 50 percent of the time spent in the process while making staffing significantly more transparent and reliable.
Niklas Tüpler
Business Manager at slashwhy
We deliberately chose a custom software solution because it allowed us to map our requirements much more precisely and consistently align the platform with the needs of its users. At the same time, we retain full control over the future development of the platform.
Hendrik Huerkamp
IT Manager at slashwhy
/skills is far more than just a matching tool. Today, the platform combines staffing, skill management, and forecasting in a single application, creating a consistent foundation for key business processes across the company.
Robin Schmitz
Product Owner /skills at slashwhy
Custom software instead of standard solutions
Clear scope through User Story Mapping
To further refine the product vision and provide a solid basis for the make-or-buy decision, a User Story Mapping workshop was conducted. The goal was to bring together ideas and requirements in a structured way and prioritize them effectively.
Based on this, potential off-the-shelf solutions were evaluated and compared against the defined requirements. It became clear that many tools either lacked the necessary functionality or were primarily designed for smaller organizations and could not accommodate the increased complexity at slashwhy. In particular, the combination of staffing and skill management could not be adequately supported by existing solutions.
The workshop not only helped to clearly define the scope of the solution and prioritize requirements, but also provided a solid basis for decision-making. The choice to pursue a custom software solution was therefore made deliberately – also with regard to lower long-term costs and the ability to retain full control over future development.
From initial prototype to internal platform /skills
The first prototype of the internal skill portal /skills was created on the initiative of a single developer, in parallel with his work on a client project. Building on this, a dedicated team was gradually established to continuously evolve the application. In addition to the core team of two developers and a UX designer, other colleagues contributed to the internal project alongside their work on client projects.
Thanks to the close involvement of business managers, the People & Culture team, and other colleagues, the solution was continuously refined directly in line with actual requirements in staffing and HR. Development followed an iterative approach, focusing on concrete use cases and continuously incorporating feedback from day-to-day project work.
The evolution toward centralized workforce management
Integrated business applications instead of fragmented processes
The feature set of /skills evolved gradually, driven by concrete use cases. Initially, the focus was on staffing and skill transparency; over time, additional features were introduced – including integrations with existing systems, reporting capabilities, and an internal project marketplace. In the process, previously fragmented workflows and distributed data sources were increasingly consolidated into a single, centralized application. Today, the platform centrally maps all employees, projects, positions, and workload. The Excel spreadsheets previously in use were phased out step by step and have now been fully replaced.
Use Case
Revenue forecasting for project-based businesses
From resource planning to reliable revenue forecasting
A key benefit of /skills – one that was not part of the original product vision – is the integrated revenue forecast. This feature combines various data sources and analyzes them automatically:
Project planning, daily rates and staffing data from /skills
Recorded project time from a project and billing system
Scheduled absences from the HR system
Internal, non-billable time is also taken into account to realistically forecast utilization rates and provide transparent insights for employees and managers.
Based on this data, the platform calculates for each project position (seat) how many days a person is actually working on a project (utilization rate) and the revenue they generate.
The results are aggregated at the project, team, and company levels, providing a consistent view of expected revenue trends.
Combining planning data with empirical insights
For a three-month period, the forecast is based on concrete planning data such as project allocations and planned absences. For longer-term projections, additional assumptions based on empirical insights are taken into account, such as seasonal vacation patterns or average sick days. This results in a realistic and practical revenue forecast that serves as a reliable basis for decision-making for both business management and finance.
High forecast accuracy & efficiency gains
The previously used Excel-based solution was fully replaced after a pilot phase. Especially within the three-month horizon, the forecast achieves a very high level of accuracy of over 97 %, while significantly reducing manual effort.
Continuous development & deeper integration
More automation & AI-powered staffing
/skills is continuously evolving. Among the planned enhancements is an AI-powered staffing recommendation engine that automatically suggests suitable team constellations and further reduces manual coordination effort and complexity. Additionally, automated reminders for skill maintenance and deeper integration with existing tools such as Jira and Confluence are in the pipeline. Looking further ahead, processes such as budget planning or license management could also be managed through the platform.
Together with the CRM system and the internal AI hub sparkie, /skills is set to become one of the central digital platforms at slashwhy, further strengthening the foundation for data-driven business management.
With the integrated revenue forecast, we now have a much more reliable basis for our planning. Especially within the three-month horizon, we achieve a forecast accuracy of more than 97 percent.
Tanja Paus
Finance Manager at slashwhy
What I particularly appreciate about slashwhy is the freedom I have as a developer to pursue and implement my own ideas alongside client work. /skills is a great example of how an initial idea and prototype gradually evolved into a central platform for the entire company.
Kolja Lampe
Senior Software Engineer at slashwhy
The /skills project is a great example of what can happen when committed colleagues take initiative and develop ideas for how we can optimize and professionalize our own processes. At slashwhy, we intentionally create the freedom to drive such ideas forward and actively shape the company.
Dr. Joachim Wilharm
Managing Director at slashwhy
Achievement & Outcome
Greater efficiency & better decisions
Central Workforce Intelligence Platform established: /skills combines staffing, skills management, forecasting, and additional functions into a single integrated, scalable solution.
Transparency regarding skills and experience: Relevant information on employees, projects, and competencies is centrally available and can be utilized in a targeted manner.
Staffing made more efficient and informed: Projects can be staffed more quickly, while workload and team constellations can be managed more effectively.
Enabled data-driven workforce planning: Recruiting and training needs can be identified early and translated into concrete measures.
Created reliable revenue forecasts: The integrated forecast provides a solid basis for decision-making in business management and finance.
Replaced fragmented processes: Excel-based solutions were replaced by a central application, significantly reducing manual effort.
Collaboration improved: Centralized data management and asynchronous planning facilitate coordination among business managers.
Growth-related risks reduced: Silos of knowledge have been eliminated, and a comprehensive overview of projects and resources has been created.
Reduced time effort: Automated processes replace manual maintenance and calculations in business management and finance.
Increased forecast accuracy: A consistent data basis and reduced manual maintenance improve accuracy, especially within the three-month forecast horizon.
FAQ
A Workforce Intelligence Platform is a central application that aggregates and analyzes data on employees, projects, and skills. It helps companies plan resources efficiently, make informed decisions, and optimize processes such as staffing, skill management, and forecasting.
Skill management refers to the systematic capture, maintenance, and development of competencies within a company. The goal is to make existing know-how visible, use it effectively, and identify training and development needs.
In project-based companies, resource planning refers to the structured allocation of employees to projects, taking into account skills, experience, availability, and utilization. The goal is to staff projects optimally while ensuring a balanced workload across the organization.
In practice, this involves consolidating and regularly updating information on employees, projects, and time availability. Depending on complexity, planning may be done manually—for example using spreadsheets—or supported by specialized software solutions. Modern approaches rely on central platforms that provide a transparent data foundation and enable the integration of resource planning, skill management, and forecasting.
Staffing refers to the planning and assignment of the right employees to projects. It takes into account not only technical skills, but also availability, utilization, experience, and team composition. The goal is to staff projects optimally while ensuring efficient resource utilization.
Matching describes the assignment of employees to requirements based on their skills and experience. Staffing goes beyond that and includes the holistic planning of project assignments, taking into account availability, utilization, and economic factors. Matching is therefore a part of staffing.
By linking project planning, availability, and financial metrics, software can automatically calculate revenue forecasts. These forecasts are based on actual planning data and are complemented by assumptions to account for future developments. This creates a reliable foundation for business decision-making.
Custom software is particularly beneficial when standard solutions do not adequately cover key requirements or cannot be adapted flexibly. Companies benefit from tailored processes, better integration into existing systems, and long-term control over further development.
User Story Mapping is a method from agile product development used to structure and prioritize requirements. User stories are arranged along the user journey to create a shared understanding of features, workflows, and priorities. In workshops, USM is particularly useful for structuring complex requirements and clearly defining the scope of a project.
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