Capacity planning
Capacity planning derives how many productive selling resources are required to hit a revenue target, given ramp time, attrition, productivity and coverage assumptions.
The model runs backward from target: required bookings, divided by expected productivity per ramped rep, adjusted for ramp curve and attrition, produces a hiring schedule with lead times. Each input is a measurable historical fact, which makes the plan arguable rather than aspirational.
Capacity planning is where the go-to-market motion’s economics become a budget. A motion whose cost to serve exceeds what its segment can support shows up here as a hiring plan the company cannot fund, which is the correct place to discover it.
Where it breaks
Ramp time is assumed rather than measured, so the plan books full productivity a quarter before it arrives.
Related terms
- Coverage model
- A coverage model specifies how many accounts of what type each seller or team is responsible for, and what level of attention each account tier receives.
- Territory design
- Territory design is the allocation of accounts to sellers such that each territory contains comparable attainable opportunity, not merely a comparable account count.
- Go-to-market motion
- A go-to-market motion is a repeatable path by which a specific offer reaches a specific segment, including the channel, the qualification standard, the selling model and the economics that make it viable.
- Quota
- Quota is the revenue target assigned to a seller or team, derived from capacity and territory potential rather than from dividing the company target by headcount.
Field notes on this
- You just inherited RevOps. Start with a charter.
Being told to "own revenue operations" is not a mandate. Until authority is written down, every decision you make is reversible by whoever objects loudest.
- Why four teams report four different revenue numbers
A reconciliation problem may be definitional, technical, or both. Test the metric contract before buying another data platform.