Capacity Baseline and Allocation Sprint (5-10 days)
A fixed-scope engagement that replaces spreadsheet guessing with a measured capacity baseline, a named allocation owner, and a weekly rebalancing ritual the client's delivery leads can run without the agency in the room. Time: 5-10 days.
By InnovaAI ResearchPublished
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Capacity Baseline and Allocation Sprint (5-10 days)
A fixed-scope engagement that replaces spreadsheet guessing with a measured capacity baseline, a named allocation owner, and a weekly rebalancing ritual the client's delivery leads can run without the agency in the room.
- Client grants read access to at least one quarter of historical time entries, project budgets, and current assignment records. A named delivery lead or operations manager is available for two 60-minute sessions per week. The client agrees to a single source of truth for bookings, so no parallel spreadsheet survives the sprint. Role and skill taxonomy is either documented or can be drafted from existing job descriptions within the first two days.
- 1.Collect one quarter of time entries, project budgets, and assignment records
- 2.Interview the delivery lead on how work is currently promised and booked
- 3.Map every place a booking decision gets made today
- 1.Build a role and skill taxonomy from existing job descriptions and project history
- 2.Tag each active project with the skills it actually consumes
- 3.Flag roles where one person is the only qualified option
- 1.Calculate billable utilization per person and per role for the trailing quarter
- 2.Separate planned hours from logged hours to expose the planning gap
- 3.Identify the three roles with the widest variance between the two
- 1.Configure the chosen platform with the taxonomy, roles, and active project list
- 2.Load baseline budgets and timelines for every in-flight project
- 3.Set utilization targets per role rather than one agency-wide number
- 1.Run a live allocation pass with the delivery lead on real upcoming work
- 2.Document where the platform's view disagreed with the lead's instinct
- 3.Adjust targets for any role where the disagreement was structural
- 1.Define the weekly rebalancing ritual: who runs it, when, and what triggers an off-cycle review
- 2.Write the escalation path for overbooked and underbooked roles
- 3.Draft the one-page allocation policy the client can circulate internally
- 1.Train two delivery leads to run the ritual without support
- 2.Hand over the taxonomy maintenance rules so new hires get classified correctly
- 3.Record a short walkthrough of the weekly review for future hires
- 1.Run the first unassisted weekly review with the agency observing only
- 2.Log every question the leads could not answer from the platform alone
- 3.Patch the taxonomy or targets where those questions exposed a gap
- 1.Produce the baseline-versus-current utilization comparison
- 2.Quantify the revenue tied to roles that moved toward target
- 3.Package the findings into a client-facing summary
- 1.Present findings and the ongoing retainer scope to the client sponsor
- 2.Agree the cadence for monthly capacity reviews
- 3.Close out access and archive the working files
Agencies can charge for this because the deliverable is a measured baseline, not a software subscription: the client is buying the difference between planned and logged hours, which is where revenue leakage hides. The setup fee covers taxonomy work and live allocation passes that no platform performs on its own, and the retainer is defensible because capacity drift returns within a quarter if nobody owns the weekly review. Margin comes from reusing the same taxonomy and ritual template across every client, so the second engagement takes roughly half the days of the first.
- Capacity baseline report covering the trailing quarter by role and by person
- Role and skill taxonomy configured in the chosen platform
- One-page allocation policy with escalation thresholds
- Weekly rebalancing ritual runbook and recorded walkthrough
- Baseline-versus-current utilization comparison for the client sponsor
Two client delivery leads have run one full weekly rebalancing review unassisted, and the platform's capacity view matches the client's own project commitments for the next four weeks.