Governance, Team, and Cadence

6.3 Resourcing Assumptions (Time, Team, Budget)—Checklists

Scenario work succeeds or stalls long before the first workshop—at the moment you set resourcing assumptions. The fastest way to lose a month is to under‑power the core team, fail to book senior calendars, or leave options and hedge budgets “to be determined.” This section provides a default baseline for a 30‑day sprint and the checklists to lock time, team, and money before Day 1. Treat these as operating rules, not suggestions.

Default resourcing baseline for a 30‑day sprint

• Team of 5–7 seniors: Strategy Lead (integrator), FP&A Lead (model owner), CI/Corp Affairs (scanning), Ops/Product (implications), Risk (signposts), PMO (cadence), Challenger (independent review; may be fractional).
• Time commitments: Strategy and FP&A at 0.4–0.6 FTE; Ops/Product and CI at 0.3–0.4 FTE; Risk at 0.2–0.3 FTE; PMO at 0.5 FTE; Challenger at 0.2 FTE.
• Sponsor and Decision Owner commit two 30‑minute check‑ins per week and attend all gates.
• Standing sessions: Daily 15‑minute stand‑up; three 90‑minute working blocks per week; two 45‑minute Finance–Strategy model syncs.
• Gate rhythm: Gate 0 (Day 1–2), Gate 1 (Day 3–5), Gate 2 (Day 10–12), Gate 3 (Day 17–19), Gate 4 (Day 24–26); instrumentation and handover on Days 27–28; communications on Days 29–30.
• Budgets pre‑approved at Gate 0: analysis spend, option premiums, hedge limits; with an explicit contingency.

Time checklist—book before Day 1

• Gate reviews placed on the calendars of Sponsor, Decision Owner, CFO/FP&A head, and any formal approvers.
• Daily stand‑ups blocked for the core team; one owner for attendance.
• Three weekly working sessions reserved with the same participants to avoid re‑briefing.
• Twice‑weekly Finance–Strategy syncs scheduled; model access confirmed.
• One 60‑minute scanning review in Week 1 and Week 2 to compress external inputs.
• Challenger review slots pre‑booked 24 hours before each gate.
• Board and Capital Committee touchpoints reserved, even if tentative.
• A 45‑minute retrospective booked for Day 30; pre‑work assigned.
• “Focus hours” are protected for Strategy and FP&A (at least two 2‑hour blocks per week).
• Vacation, quarter‑close, and major product milestones mapped to avoid collisions.

Team composition checklist—assign names, not roles

• Sponsor and Decision Owner are different people; both are named.
• Strategy Lead has authority to integrate across functions and stop low‑value analysis.
• FP&A Lead co‑owns the model and can certify numbers; no “shadow models.”
• Ops/Product lead is from the business affected; not a detached staff role.
• Risk lead owns signposts and understands limit frameworks and appetite statements.
• CI/Corp Affairs curates sources and relationships; not a generalist Googling the world.
• PMO enforces gates, version control, and the assumptions log; can hold senior calendars.
• Challenger is independent of the decision line, with access and escalation rights.
• Legal and Treasury are named liaisons of covenants, counterparties, or regulatory moves are in scope.
• A single slide editor or comms partner is designated to keep executive materials clean.

Budget architecture—decide the money you will actually spend

You need three distinct pools. Mixing them invites paralysis.

• Analysis budget: data purchases, expert calls, modeling support, and visualization. This funds speed and quality.
• Option premium budget: small, time‑bound spends that keep strategic paths open—vendor reserves, pilot builds, inventory or capacity holds, partner diligence.
• Hedge budget: bounded costs that cap downside—insurance riders, financial hedges, minimum‑viable dual sourcing, contractual floor/ceiling mechanisms.

Each pool has an owner, a cap, and a release rule. Option premiums carry explicit expiry dates; hedge budgets carry trigger thresholds and unwind criteria. Record all three in TPL‑02 (Executive Outcomes Contract) and TPL‑03 (Decision Rights & Cadence Sheet).

Budget checklist—set numbers, owners, and release rules

• Analysis budget amount approved; categories listed; procurement routes confirmed.
• Option premium cap set as a share of affected revenue or investment; expiry windows defined.
• Hedge budget set with risk limits aligned to risk appetite; unwind criteria written.
• Decision Owner holds the pen on option releases up to a threshold; above that, Capital Committee or CFO co‑approves.
• Challenger has standing to review option and hedge proposals for coherence with scenarios.
• Contingency (10–20% of analysis budget) reserved for unplanned data or modeling pivots.
• Travel/workshop line item explicit, even if minimal; virtual by default but decided upfront.
• Expert network call pack or advisory days pre‑purchased if scanning depth is critical.
• Legal review hours ring‑fenced if contracts or disclosures may be affected.
• Visualization/editorial support funded for Gate 4 materials; do not improvise at the end.

Access and tooling checklist—eliminate friction

• Repository created with permissions set; templates TPL‑01 to TPL‑21 preloaded.
• Modeling environment accessible to Strategy and FP&A; audit trails active.
• Data feeds for signposts identified; API keys or vendor logins provisioned.
• Expert network or research portals live; rate cards agreed.
• Collaboration tools (whiteboarding, document review) standardized; no personal drives.
• Slide template for executive packs locked; footnote style defined for traceability.
• Red‑team channel established for Challenger to log issues without email sprawl.
• Board/Capital Committee pack shells copied from prior approvals to speed production.

Quality and capacity guardrails

Assume you will be attention‑constrained more than budget‑constrained. Two rules help. First, keep the scenario set to three or four; every added future drains modeling and debate capacity. Second, tie analysis requests to a decision impact statement: what choice could change, by how much, and by when. If the answer is “unclear,” do not spend the cycle.

Signals your resourcing is underpowered

• Pre‑reads miss gate deadlines or arrive with unresolved caveats.
• FP&A is running parallel numbers outside the shared model.
• The Challenger’s notes accumulate without owner responses.
• Options lack explicit premiums, expiries, or stage‑gates.
• The Sponsor begins asking for “one more scenario” rather than committing to triggers.
• Decision‑critical stakeholders show up only at Gate 4.

If two or more of these appear by Week 3, stop and renegotiate either scope, time, or budget. Continuing with a hollow core produces elegant decks and weak decisions.

Right‑sizing guidance—when to scale up or down

Scale up when the decision locks exposure beyond two planning cycles, affects multiple BUs, or hinges on external moves that require legal or treasury structuring. Add a BU finance partner, legal, and a dedicated data engineer. Scale down when the choice is reversible, the uncertainty is local, or the value at stake is modest; keep Strategy and FP&A as a two‑person core, borrow Ops/Product as needed, and skip formal expert calls.

Resourcing baseline—one‑page fields to complete in TPL‑02 and TPL‑03

• Decision at risk and horizon.
• Sponsor, Decision Owner, Approvers, Challenger.
• Core team names with FTE commitments.
• Gate dates and required pre‑reads.
• Analysis budget and owner; contingency.
• Option premium cap, release authority, and expiry policy.
• Hedge budget, triggers, and unwind rules.
• Tooling, data feeds, and access confirmations.
• Board and Capital Committee touchpoints.
• Success metrics for this cycle.

Lock these assumptions at Gate 0. When time, team, and budget are explicit up front, the sprint moves at executive speed and ends with real commitments—no suspense, no surprises, and no excuses.