To war-game a hiring plan before the board approves it, put the plan by role and start month, the revenue or delivery targets it is meant to support, and actual data on how long recent hires took to fill and to become fully productive into one request. Then instruct Pingpong to recompute what the new hires can deliver this year from those actuals, compare that with the targets, and flag each role that has no outcome attached. Do it before the budget is locked.
This page is for chief executives and their finance and people leads preparing an annual or mid-year headcount plan. For the cash and covenant view of the same plan, see role-play the CFO before you commit to a plan. If the plan also changes reporting lines, see review a reorg proposal before you commit to it. Executive starting points live under Pingpong for executives.
What each row of the plan should carry
- The role, the team, and the month the person is expected to start.
- The outcome the role serves, such as new bookings, a product release, or a support response time.
- How long the last few hires in that role took to fill and how many months they took to reach full output.
- Who manages the new hire, and how many people that manager will then have.
Directors usually ask what each hire buys and when. Without these columns the plan cannot answer.
Ramp math
A hire approved in January may not start until April and may not reach full output until autumn. If the plan counts every new salesperson at full quota from their first month, the revenue target is overstated by the months of hiring and ramp. The war-game should recompute capacity month by month from your own history, then show the gap between that number and the target.
It should also check whether recruiters, interviewers, and managers can handle the planned pace.
A worked example
This example is illustrative and does not describe a customer. A 95-person security software company asks its board to approve 34 hires for the coming year, which would take it to 129 people. The plan supports a target of growing annual recurring revenue from $14 million to $24 million. The hires are 12 account executives, 8 engineers, 6 customer success managers, 4 marketers, and 4 in finance and operations.
The chief executive pastes the plan, the revenue model, and hiring history for the last eight account executives.
A useful pass starts with sales capacity. The model counts each new account executive at full quota from the quarter they are hired. The last eight took 11 weeks on average to fill and six months to reach a full quarter of quota. With hires spread evenly through the year, the new account executives would produce about 40 percent of the bookings the model assigns them. The 12 would also report to the existing two sales managers.
Then pace and sequencing. The company has one recruiter and made at most one and a half hires a month last year. This plan needs nearly three. The customer success hires start in the first quarter, before the new customers they would serve exist, while the engineers start in the second half even though the roadmap promises two releases by midyear. The four marketing roles have no pipeline target attached.
The chief executive revises the plan before the meeting. Eight account executives move into the first half, and one sales manager and a second recruiter are added. Engineering hires move to the first quarter. Customer success hiring is tied to customer count, one manager for every 25 new customers. Marketing hires carry a pipeline coverage target. The board sees a base target of $21.5 million with $24 million as a stretch, and a midyear checkpoint where second-half hiring is released only if the first-half account executives reach 60 percent of quota.
A request you can copy
Below are our hiring plan by role and start month, the targets it supports, and our actual time-to-fill and ramp time for recent hires. Recompute what the new hires can deliver this year using our actuals, month by month, and show the gap against the targets. Check whether our recruiting team and managers can absorb this pace. Flag roles with no outcome attached, hires that start before the work exists or after it is due, and managers who would end up with more than eight reports. Suggest which roles could be contractors, agencies, or delayed. Don't rewrite the plan for me.
How Pingpong runs the war-game
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. Recalculate every flagged figure yourself before you change the plan. For the steps inside the app, see running your first review.
What a model can't war-game
A model does not know your local hiring market, which current employees are close to leaving, or whether a strong candidate is already in final rounds. Compensation, equity, and employment law questions belong with your people team and counsel.
When the plan goes to a board vote, see war-game a decision before the board meeting. More guides live under work decisions before you commit.