Before the board approves a revenue plan, war-game the capacity plan behind it. Trace each unit of demand into the hours, seats, or throughput it consumes, use the utilization you actually achieved last year, count the real lead time for hiring and vendors, and name the bottleneck that breaks first if the plan lands. Paste the revenue plan, last year's utilization, lead times, and per-customer assumptions into one request. Instruct Pingpong to flag utilization above what you have ever achieved, capacity that arrives after the demand it is meant to serve, and single teams that every deal depends on. Review your written answers in a second round.
This page is for chief executives and operating leaders showing the board that the company can deliver what the plan says it will sell. Executive starting points live under Pingpong for executives.
From demand to capacity, step by step
- Start with units of demand: new customers, orders, active users, or projects, by quarter.
- Convert each unit into what it consumes: implementation hours, support tickets, compute, warehouse space.
- Apply the utilization you actually reached, by team, over the last four quarters.
- Subtract the time it takes to add capacity: hiring, ramping, vendor contracts, equipment delivery.
- Compare quarter by quarter, and mark where demand gets ahead of capacity.
Most capacity plans skip the fourth step. They count a new hire as productive in the month the offer is signed.
Utilization is where plans get generous
Every team believes it can run hotter next year. Leaders remember their best month and plan around it. A delivery team that averaged 68 percent billable time will not reach 85 percent because the plan needs it to; onboarding, internal projects, and holiday weeks do not disappear. Teams pushed past their ceiling show it later, in attrition and slower go-lives. Directors who have run operations know this, and a stretch number here makes them doubt the rest of the plan.
A worked example
This example is illustrative and does not describe a customer. A software company with a heavy implementation component plans to add 280 new customers next year, up from 200. Each new customer needs about 120 hours of implementation. The delivery team has 24 consultants, and the plan says no new hires are needed.
The chief executive and head of delivery paste quarterly bookings, last year's utilization, hiring timelines, and support volume by segment.
A useful pass finds that the plan assumes 85 percent utilization, while the team averaged 68 percent. At 68 percent, 24 consultants deliver about 29,400 hours against 33,600 needed, a gap of roughly four consultants. Bookings are weighted to the second half, and new consultants take about five months from opening the role to working on their own, so they must start in the first quarter. Four solutions architects support every enterprise deal before and after signing, and the plan grows enterprise bookings by half without adding any. A new small-business segment generates about twice the support tickets per customer, and support capacity is held flat. The hosting contract needs six months' notice to expand.
The revised plan uses 70 percent utilization. Four consultants are hired in the first quarter. Two senior engineers cross-train as architects, and an implementation partner signs an overflow agreement. Support capacity tracks small-business volume, and the hosting notice goes out now. A trigger is set: if bookings run 10 percent ahead of plan for two months, the next round of capacity is released without waiting for the next board meeting. The board sees one chart showing demand and capacity by quarter, with the point where time to go live would slip past 60 days.
What the board will ask
- The bottleneck: which team or resource runs out first, and when.
- The assumption: what utilization the plan uses, compared with what you have achieved.
- The lead time: how long it takes to add capacity once you decide to.
- The upside case: what breaks if sales beat the plan, and who decides to add capacity.
- The customer effect: how a shortfall would show up for customers, and how you would know early.
If the plan is being cut instead, see war-game a headcount freeze before the board hears it.
A request you can copy
Below are our quarterly revenue plan, last year's utilization by team, lead times, and per-customer resource assumptions. Convert demand into required capacity by quarter. Flag utilization assumptions above what we have achieved. Show where capacity arrives later than the demand it serves. Identify the bottleneck that breaks first and what happens if bookings beat plan by 10 percent. Stop there so we can answer in writing, then review our answers.
How Pingpong runs the review
The web review app sends your request through several models in order. Each later model receives the original request and every earlier answer, with instructions to assess the work so far. For the steps inside the app, see running your first review.
What a model can't review
A model cannot tell how tired your teams already are or how long a particular role takes to fill in your market. It can check whether the plan's arithmetic and timing hold together. The judgment about people is yours.
When the decision goes to the board, see war-game a decision before the board meeting. More guides live under work decisions before you commit.