Monthly Capacity Planning Cycle (generic process)

Monthly Capacity Planning Cycle (generic process) is the generic process card, GP-102, for the recurring monthly cycle by which a workforce function refreshes its demand and supply outlook, computes the requirement and the gap per business unit, clears the gap by internal moves before external hiring, locks a plan of record and learns from the previous month's variance. The six-stage method is documented in full on Capacity Planning Cycle and is not restated here; this card carries what a function needs in addition to the method in order to catalog, localize, certify and automate the process: its L0 profile, its known variant classes, the L3 job aids a localizing team must write, and the sub-steps flagged as automation candidates. It is part of Process Standardization and sits under the capacity-planning section of the function catalog in Anatomy of a ROC Standard.

The cycle's structural ancestor is the monthly sales-and-operations-planning cycle, whose closing meeting is a decision meeting that commits the organization to one set of numbers rather than a status review. It is the process through which every other function's numbers pass once a month, which is why it is the first card a standards committee usually certifies.

Process profile

The profile extends the L0 identity fields of Process Decomposition (L0–L3) with the process-level facts a standards committee needs before any step is drawn. Local values are held by the deploying function and marked SET LOCALLY.

Field	Generic value
Card	GP-102 · local card id assigned by the standards committee at deployment
Class	strategic, in the catalog's four-class vocabulary (strategic · real-time · both · supporting); its monthly horizon is tactical in the terms of Decision Rights by Planning Horizon
Trigger	the business-day calendar: stage 1 opens on the first business day after the demand actuals close
Cadence	monthly, on a rolling horizon the function sets (SET LOCALLY; twelve to eighteen months is typical [A])
Scope in	every business unit and supply node the function plans; demand, supply and requirement at the unit level; the gap; the clearing decisions; the lock
Scope out	the forecasting method itself (Three-Step Forecast Build); the hiring process after a requisition is raised; the weekly reforecast (Reforecast and Rolling Forecast Methodology)
Inputs	the short-term forecast and its lock (Forecast Lock Process); the roster and its roll-forward; attrition and hiring assumptions; the constraint register; last month's plan of record and its variance
Outputs	the plan of record with its signature; the surplus and deficit table per unit; the clearing decisions and the requisitions they raise; the variance review
Upstream	the enterprise demand forecast; finance's budget envelope; the placement function's constraint register; the definitions register
Downstream	scheduling (the requirement by week); recruiting (requisitions); finance (the committed cost line); the real-time function (the staffing floor the plan commits)
Resources	a capacity model with a plan of record; a roster system of record; the forecast; the register of constraints; the committee calendar. Platforms are named at L3, never here
Decision points	the clearing decision (move before hire); the lock decision (pencils down); the exception path when a unit's gap exceeds the band the plan can absorb
Authority tier	stage decisions at tier 1 (the planner inside the cycle calendar); the client-portfolio inputs signed at tier 2 by the planner who owns each; the lock at tier 4, the function head; a gap outside the band escalates to the executive sponsor by exception, per Decision Authority Tiers in Workforce Operations
Risk and compliance flags	headcount commitments that bind finance; requisitions that bind recruiting; a plan signed on unreconciled definitions is the composition trap of the definitions register
Variant-prone steps	the calendar offsets; the clearing rules where contracts dedicate supply; the approval tier where a works council must see a hiring plan
Automation candidates	five L2 sub-steps (listed below)

L1 and L2

The L1 flow is the six-stage cycle on Capacity Planning Cycle: demand refresh, supply roll-forward, requirement and gap, clearing, lock and decide, execute and learn. That page also carries the L2 decomposition of each stage. A deploying function copies both into its own L1 and L2 artifacts through Wiki:Packs/Process Decomposition and fills the L2 columns the generic page leaves open, among them the owning seat per sub-step, the ticketing code, the notification text, the approver and the duration. In the APQC classification the cycle is a Level 3 process under process group 7.1 with its stages as Level 4 activities; the documentation levels used here are a different axis, as the method page explains.

Variants

The known variant classes for this process, recorded per Standard and Variant in Process Documentation:

• Statutory. A jurisdiction where a hiring plan or a reduction must be presented to a works council before it is committed inserts a decision step between clearing and lock; the works-council liaison owns the step and the function head approves the variant.
• Contractual. A client contract that dedicates supply removes that supply from the clearing pool. The clearing step is parameterized by the constraint register, so the exclusion is marked SET LOCALLY and takes no variant row.
• Structural. A unit with no roster system of record rolls supply forward from a headcount file. The roll-forward step is varied, with a review date at each cycle until a system of record exists.
• Transitional. A unit migrating from a predecessor organization that still runs its own cycle on a different calendar keeps it under a variant row until its first month on the shared calendar, which the standards committee dates.

L3 register

A localizing team writes these job aids against the generic L2; names only, the content is the function's. Two conventions govern the writing. Thresholds (the band a gap may sit in before escalation, the pencils-down business day) are L3 values and are marked SET LOCALLY in the L2 row, and a decision branch is an L2 row of its own, so that "gap outside band: escalate" appears as a step with an owner and not as a footnote.

Job aid	Anchored to	Form
The calendar of business-day offsets per stage	stages 1 to 5	work instruction
The demand-refresh checklist (sources, cut-off, sign-off)	stage 1	work instruction
The roster roll-forward query and its reconciliation to the headcount of record	stage 2	work instruction; see Headcount Reconciliation in Service Operations
The requirement computation and its parameters	stage 3	work instruction; method on Capacity Planning Methods
The clearing rules and the constraint register layout	stage 4	playbook
The lock pack: what the signatory sees, the signature record	stage 5	work instruction
The variance review template and the lesson log	stage 6	playbook
The exception path when a gap exceeds the band	stages 3 to 5	runbook

Automation candidates

Flagged at L2 per the method on Process Decomposition (L0–L3); released per class of action on a published catch rate per Human Gates and Number Grades, never on a maturity label.

1. The roster roll-forward (stage 2): a deterministic query against the system of record; the first candidate because its catch rate is easiest to publish.
2. The requirement computation (stage 3): deterministic given the definitions register; the overseer checks inputs, not arithmetic.
3. The surplus and deficit table (stage 3): assembled, not decided.
4. The clearing proposal (stage 4): an agent may propose moves within the constraint register; the clearing decision stays human until the proposal's catch rate is published.
5. The variance review draft (stage 6): the comparison of plan to actual is computed; the narrative is reviewed.

The lock (stage 5) is never a candidate. It is the plan signature gate, and a signature is a human act by definition; the sales-and-operations-planning literature makes the same point about the executive meeting.

Maturity Model Position

Four scales on this wiki use the word level; the launch page states which is which. On the WFM Labs Maturity Model™ a function that runs the cycle on a published calendar with a signed plan of record is at Level 2; one that has released the first three candidates above on a published catch rate is at Level 3; one whose clearing proposal is agent-drafted and whose plan of record is the machine-readable object described in Long-Term Planning Agents and the Plan of Record is at Level 4.

See Also

• Process Standardization — the hub and the inventory this card belongs to
• Capacity Planning Cycle — the method: six stages at L1 and L2
• Capacity Planning Methods — the requirement arithmetic
• Workforce Planning Calendar and Annual Planning Cycle — the annual frame the monthly cycle sits in
• Process Shells for a Workforce Standard — the shell marks and the catalog row
• Standard and Variant in Process Documentation — how the variants above are recorded
• The Definitions Register — the definitions the requirement is computed on
• Wiki:Packs/Process Decomposition — the pack that localizes this card (CP-OPS-001)