War-game an open-to-buy cut by proving each budget class has a named owner, a measured age-out, and a reverse path before draft floors start governing every buy claim.
Open-to-buy cuts fail when "reduced" means a status without a decision artifact, when teams dual-count a draft budget as both approved and live, and when high-risk categories still pin to one thin buyer because the budget inventory is incomplete. The review needs one written inventory of budget classes, one owner who can deny a risky shortcut, and a documented consequence when a failed buy ages past the deadline.
State the cut under fire
State which categories the cut covers, the effective date, which budgets change, how versions are stored, and what happens to POs already in flight. Name the buyers that feel it first and the promo promises that depend on coherent open-to-buy handling. If the memo mixes an open-to-buy cut with a promo calendar freeze and a planogram 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 category, coverage gap, or vendor deadline that would force a cut rollback within a stated window.
Seat the buy room
- Merchandising. Budget timing, age-out math, and what the sell-through forecast hides if exceptions soften after the policy.
- Buying. Lead-time lag, dual-counted budgets, and the message that would leave orphan POs open past lock.
- Inventory ops. Receipt capacity, safety stock load, and relationship damage with vendors when budgets jump overnight.
- Finance. Working-capital load, forecast promises that break in process, and the first ninety days of thinner inventory after a soft cut.
- Skeptic. The claim that looks strongest and is least sourced.
Give every seat the same exhibits: open budgets, buys 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.
Pressure the soft budgets
Feed Pingpong the cut memo, the budget exhibits, and the seating briefs. First pass steelmans the cut. Later passes attack from merchandising, buying, inventory, and finance seats. Final pass turns surviving objections into phased budget rules, mitigations, or a changed recommendation.
Pair with the merchandising ops lead seat, a planogram freeze, a promo calendar freeze, and a safety stock rule. More operating decisions live in the war-game decisions hub.
Ship the cut only when approved and blocked budget labels can be reproduced from stored open-to-buy exports without a verbal override.