Managing planning across divisions, regions, and teams

Rocket Science Group operates across three divisions: backend infrastructure, game development, and live operations, with Terminal Velocity leading the latter. Each area has different workflows, timelines, and skill requirements.

With roughly 145 people spread across Wales, England, and the USA, the company operates across multiple timezones and works alongside studios to support development, from building game systems to running live operations.

Coordinating work across those functions goes beyond scheduling. It is a balancing act between people, projects, and profitability.

“Resource planning for us is inherently multi-dimensional,” says Brian Corrigan, Co-founder and President of Rocket Science Group and General Manager of Terminal Velocity. “We need to understand who’s working on what, whether people are properly allocated, and whether projects are staffed the right way, all at the same time.”

Before Runn, they managed availability and project plans with spreadsheets. As Corrigan notes, spreadsheets can be unreliable for complex planning, and it’s not always clear where or why.

So, they began looking for a better way to plan and forecast work across the business.

Getting the math right for better utilization

When evaluating software options, Rocket Science Group found that most solutions fell into two categories. They either focused too heavily on time tracking or supported capacity planning without reflecting the complexity of a services business.

Runn fell into its own category, striking the right balance between the details and the big picture. It is built for capacity planning and forecasting, not just tracking time.

In a business working across time zones, public holidays, and time off — while balancing billable and non-billable projects — that level of precision is essential.

Corrigan explains that if someone spends 25% of their time on non-billable work and 72% on billable work, then factor in time off, the math quickly becomes complex.

“When you’re dealing with partial allocations across projects, internal work, and time off, the math gets complicated very quickly. If that foundation isn’t right, everything built on top of it starts to break down. That’s why Runn stands out — the allocation and utilization math is dialed in. It’s better than any product I’ve used in my career.”

For Rocket Science Group, this is not just an operational detail. It directly impacts how the business performs.

“Understanding utilization is make-or-break. It’s what everything else depends on.”

With an accurate view of how work is allocated across the business, even small shifts in utilization become visible.

“We’ve seen utilization improve by around 5% to 6% over the last year with Runn. When you’re operating on margin, even a few percentage points make a real difference — that’s where profitability is won or lost.”

Aligning pipeline, delivery, and skills

Accurate utilization data only solves part of the problem. The other part is knowing what’s coming.

“We start modelling projects in Runn before they’re fully confirmed. Once we have a certain level of confidence a project will go ahead, we treat it as real and plan around it.”

This gives leadership a six-to-nine month view of capacity and demand, and allows them to adjust project timing more deliberately. If there is a gap in capacity, they can shift start dates to better align with availability rather than forcing work into already busy periods.

"Now I can look several months out and see where we have a gap. If a client wants to start earlier, we can adjust timing so it fits properly — nobody's overloaded, and the work lands where it makes sense."

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The same visibility also informs how work gets staffed.

For teams with a wide range of roles and skills, particularly in game development, this adds another planning layer.

“If we know we’ve got work coming in that requires specific roles or skills, we can plan for that early, whether that’s hiring, contracting, or shifting work across teams. We’re not just thinking about capacity, we’re thinking about capability. Runn helps us understand whether we have the right people with the right skills for what’s coming.”

That combined picture of capacity and demand defines what the team can commit to and deliver.

Building around real workflows with Runn’s API

That view is only as reliable as the rest of the business’s data and workflows.

Rocket Science Group has integrated Runn with their HRIS system, a custom-built invoicing system, and financial systems for reporting and forecasting.

“We use Runn’s API to integrate it with our broader systems and support custom workflows,” says Corrigan. “It is well documented, straightforward to use, and flexible to support what we needed to build.”

Because they operate with more complex billing models, they built their own invoicing layer on top of Runn, and now use it as a source of project and allocation data.

“Runn has the data we need, and then we extend it to fit our model. Things like external references and flexible data structures like tags seem simple, but they’re what make integrations actually work in practice.”

A system teams trust

Teams across Rocket Science Group rely on the software as a shared source of truth, each with different needs but all working from the same data.

Leadership focuses on utilization and forward-looking planning, and uses Insights and the Reports Center to track performance and spot trends over time. Producers manage day-to-day scheduling and availability, and tech directors rely on it to understand workload and team balance.

“Runn has become the place we go to understand what’s happening, whether that’s today, next month, or half a year out.”

Before, a simple question about next month meant reconciling multiple conflicting plans. Now there's only one plan.

“Once you have a system that everyone trusts, decision-making becomes much simpler. You’re not debating the data, you’re acting on it.”