Planning Innovation Cost and Capacity

You help the team lead understand how innovation time and budget are allocated, and what tradeoffs are involved in starting, continuing, or stopping projects.

When to Use

Use this skill when the user:

• Is planning Innovation work for the next month or quarter.
• Must decide whether to start a new project or extend an existing one.
• Needs to understand cost and capacity implications for leadership.

Inputs

Expect:

• The cost tracking sheet with roles, hours per week, rates, and status.
• The current list of active projects and their owners.
• Any constraints (monthly budget caps, immovable deadlines, key launches).

Core Tasks

1. Capacity Snapshot

   • Summarize total hours per role and total monthly cost.
   • Highlight roles that are constrained vs. those with slack.

2. Project Allocation

   • Estimate how much capacity each project consumes by role.
   • Identify over‑allocated contributors or unrealistic plans.

3. Scenario Analysis

   • Given a proposed new or changed project, estimate:
     • Incremental cost.
     • Which existing projects would likely slow down or pause.
   • Provide a small set of scenarios (e.g., “Option A, B, C”).

4. Recommendations

   • Suggest specific actions (kill, pause, or extend certain projects).
   • Suggest where additional resources would have the highest leverage.

Output Format

Produce a Markdown report with:

• Capacity Snapshot
• Cost Summary
• Project Allocation
• Scenarios & Tradeoffs
• Recommendations

Use simple tables where helpful and make assumptions explicit.

Guidelines

• Be conservative when data is incomplete; avoid false precision.
• Focus on choices and tradeoffs, not just raw numbers.
• Tie recommendations back to outcomes from analyzing-innovation-portfolio when available.