War-game an assortment cut ladder by proving each stage class has a named owner, a measured age-out, and a reverse path before draft cuts start governing every category claim.
Assortment cut ladders fail when "escalated" means a status without a decision artifact, when teams dual-count a draft stage as both approved and live, and when high-risk categories still pin to one thin planner because the stage inventory is incomplete. The review needs one written inventory of cut stages, one owner who can deny a risky shortcut, and a documented consequence when a failed stage ages past the deadline.
Name each cut stage
State which category classes the ladder covers, the effective date, which stages change, how evidence packs are versioned, and what happens to cuts already in flight. Name the banners that feel it first and the vendor promises that depend on coherent assortment handling. If the memo mixes an assortment cut ladder with an open-to-buy cut and a promo calendar freeze, split them. A war game needs one move under fire at a time.
Write the decision you will make if the war game finds nothing new. Also write the reverse criteria: the missed stage, coverage gap, or customer deadline that would force a ladder rollback within a stated window.
Seat the assortment room
- Merchandising. Stage timing, age-out math, and what the sell-through forecast hides if cuts soften after the policy.
- Store ops. Reset lag, dual-counted stages, and the message that would leave orphan facings open past lock.
- Inventory ops. Pick capacity, safety stock load, and relationship damage with vendors when cuts jump overnight.
- Finance. Working-capital load, forecast promises that break in process, and the first ninety days of thinner sell-through after a soft stage.
- Skeptic. The claim that looks strongest and is least sourced.
Give every seat the same exhibits: open cuts, stages in flight, protected categories, coverage commitments, and the age-out policy you intend to use. Private data for one seat invents agreement that will not survive the real room.
Attack the soft stages
Feed Pingpong the ladder memo, the stage exhibits, and the seating briefs. First pass steelmans the ladder. Later passes attack from merchandising, store, inventory, and finance seats. Final pass turns surviving objections into phased stage rules, mitigations, or a changed recommendation. Agreement across passes is not proof. Keep the objections that still have evidence gaps.
Pair with an open-to-buy cut, the merchandising ops lead seat, a planogram freeze, and a promo calendar freeze. More operating decisions live in the war-game decisions hub.
Ship the ladder only when approved and blocked stage labels can be reproduced from stored assortment exports without a verbal override.