--- name: sales_capacity_planning description: "Plan sales capacity before hiring: build a ramp-adjusted capacity model by quarter, test attainment in low, base, and high bands, match hiring dates and pipeline coverage to each quarter target, flag the quarter that needs reps who have not been hired yet, and set dated hiring triggers. Use when someone asks how many reps to hire, whether a revenue target is staffable, when to open requisitions, why a quarter is set up to miss, or to build or audit a sales headcount plan." --- # Sales Capacity Planning ## Purpose Turn a revenue target into a staffing plan that can actually deliver it. Headcount alone is not capacity: a rep contributes only after recruiting lead time and ramp, at the attainment the team has really shown, and only if enough qualified pipeline exists to feed the quota. The core math, per rep and summed across the team: Capacity for a period = sum of (ramp factor x quota x attainment) Run the bundled model instead of doing this math by hand in a spreadsheet cell nobody audits: `python3 scripts/capacity_model.py plan.json --out result.json`. Input fields and a full worked plan live in `references/`. ## Workflow 1. Gather the inputs, by segment if segments differ. You need: starting quota-carrying reps, quota per rep per quarter, trailing attainment by cohort or segment, the ramp curve from past new-hire cohorts, planned hire start months, expected departures or an annual attrition rate, quarterly targets, time from opening a requisition to a start date, and win rate plus the share of pipeline that normally closes inside the quarter it is counted for. If a segment has a different quota, cycle, or ramp, model it separately and add the results. 2. Build the attainment band from real history, not hope. Pull trailing attainment for fully ramped reps over the last four quarters. Set base at the median or trimmed mean of that history, low at a bad-but-seen quarter, high at a good-but-seen quarter. Never set base at 100 percent unless the team's own history shows it. A plan that only works at high attainment is not a plan, it is a hope with a table around it. 3. Build the ramp curve from cohort data. For each past hire cohort, divide bookings in each tenure month by the fully ramped quota for that month, then average across cohorts. If there is no cohort data yet, start from a published curve and label it as borrowed until real data replaces it. One widely used inside-sales curve is 0, 0, 25, 50, 75, 100 percent across months one to six. Enterprise reps with long cycles ramp slower, often with first deals in months four to six and full productivity near month twelve. Velocity reps with short cycles can reach full productivity by month five or six. See `references/sources-and-ranges.md`. 4. Run the model monthly, read it quarterly. The model converts every cohort into productive rep equivalents each month, applies the attainment band, and rolls the months into quarters with target, capacity at low, base, and high, and the gap for each. Check the low band as hard as the base band: a quarter that passes at base and fails badly at low needs either more capacity, a lower committed target, or an explicit risk note signed by whoever owns the number. 5. Find the phantom quarter. A phantom quarter is any quarter where base capacity sits below target. The model names the missing fully ramped equivalents and counts the hires that would close the gap only if they were fully ramped for the whole quarter, which new hires by definition are not. Then work backwards: a rep is fully productive only after requisition lead time plus ramp. If requisitions for that quarter had to open in a month that has already passed, say so in the plan, in plain words, and present the real options: pull hires forward, move target to a later quarter, raise attainment with a named program, or accept and document the shortfall. 6. Check pipeline coverage per quarter, not just capacity. Required qualified pipeline at quarter open = target / (win rate x in-quarter close rate). At a 25 percent win rate and a 75 percent in-quarter close rate, a quarter needs about 5.3 times its target in qualified pipeline. Count only qualified pipeline with a real next step and a close date inside the quarter. Stale deals inflate coverage and hide the same miss the capacity model just found. If coverage is short, the binding constraint is pipeline, not headcount, and hiring more reps into an empty territory makes the miss more expensive, not smaller. 7. Subtract attrition and vacancies honestly. Use either explicit expected departures by month or an annual attrition rate spread across months, never both. A departure removes a fully ramped rep first in most real teams, and the backfill restarts the full lead time plus ramp clock. If the plan assumes zero departures on a team that has never had a zero-departure year, fix the assumption before anyone signs the plan. 8. Set hiring triggers with dates, not intentions. Each trigger names a quarter, the gap it closes, the start month, and the requisition open month. Write them as rules the team can act on without a new meeting: for example, if projected base capacity for a quarter two quarters ahead falls below target, open the requisitions that month. Add a monthly review: update actual hires, departures, and attainment, rerun the model, and revise the plan when actuals move, not at year end. 9. Present the plan and get the hard calls made out loud. Show the quarterly table, name every phantom quarter, state which attainment band the commitment rests on, and list the triggers with their dates. Whoever owns the target chooses, on the record, between hiring earlier, adding pipeline work, or carrying the gap as a known risk. ## Output Contract Every capacity plan delivers, in this order: 1. Assumptions block: quota per rep, attainment low, base, and high with the history they came from, the ramp curve and its source, requisition lead time, attrition treatment, win rate, and in-quarter close rate. 2. Monthly table: headcount, productive rep equivalents, and capacity at base attainment. 3. Quarterly table: target, capacity at low, base, and high, gap at base and at low, required productive reps, and required qualified pipeline at quarter open. 4. Phantom quarter list: each short quarter, the missing fully ramped equivalents, the start-by month, and the requisition open-by month, with a note when that date has already passed. 5. Hiring trigger list: dated triggers tied to quarters and gaps, plus the monthly review date. 6. The decision list: hire earlier, build pipeline, move the target, or carry the risk, with an owner for each open item. ## Operating Rules - Accuracy rule: every factual claim must be verified via web search or a primary source. Never invent numbers, dates, quotes, or events. Unverifiable = cut it or frame as opinion. No confident unverified claims, ever. - The team's own trailing data outranks every published range. Published ramp and attainment ranges are starting assumptions only, labeled as borrowed until cohort data replaces them. - Never count a new hire at full quota in their start quarter unless the ramp curve, built from real cohorts, says so. - Never present quota capacity (reps x quota) as sales capacity. The two differ by ramp and attainment, and confusing them is the most common way these plans go wrong. - Model segments separately when quota, sales cycle, or ramp differs by segment. One blended average hides the segment that misses. - Count coverage from qualified, in-quarter pipeline only. Exclude stale deals with no next step before quoting a coverage ratio. - The CLI is the source of truth for the math. Recompute with it after any assumption changes, and keep the input JSON with the plan so anyone can rerun it. - Do not pad the plan to make a target look staffable: no silent attainment raises, no shortened ramp, no zero attrition on a team with real turnover. Flag the gap and let the owner decide.