budgeting-and-forecasting
Runs the planning cycle — annual budget, rolling forecast, consolidation of business unit inputs, and the variance analysis that explains actuals against plan. Use this to build or challenge a budget, run a forecast cycle, consolidate departmental submissions, explain why results diverged from plan, or improve forecast accuracy.
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/cbrock84/headcount /tmp/budgeting-and-forecasting && cp -r /tmp/budgeting-and-forecasting/plugins/finance/skills/budgeting-and-forecasting ~/.claude/skills/budgeting-and-forecastingSKILL.md
# Budgeting and forecasting ## The budget is a commitment, the forecast is a belief Keep them separate. A budget re-cut every month is not a commitment; a forecast held to the original budget is not a belief. Both failures make the numbers useless for different reasons. ## Running the cycle 1. **Set the frame first** — targets, headcount envelope, and the assumptions everyone builds on (pricing, attrition, timing). Distributed teams building on different assumptions produces a consolidation that cannot be reconciled. 2. **Collect in a fixed template.** Free-form submissions cost more to normalize than to build. 3. **Challenge the inputs**, specifically: what is the volume driver, what is this per unit, what happens if it comes in at half. Budget submissions are negotiating positions and should be treated as such without hostility. 4. **Consolidate and find the gap** between bottom-up and top-down. There always is one. Close it explicitly by cutting something named, not by proportional trimming — proportional cuts damage the highest-return line as much as the lowest. 5. **Publish what was not funded** and why. This prevents the same request arriving three times. ## Rolling forecast Re-forecast on a fixed cadence over a constant horizon. Update only what has changed and say what changed and why. A re-forecast with no narrative is a new set of numbers with no information in it. ## Variance analysis Variance is only useful decomposed. For each material variance, separate: - **Volume** — did we do more or less of it? - **Rate** — did each unit cost or earn a different amount? - **Timing** — did it move between periods, or is it gone? - **Mix** — did the composition shift? Timing variances need no action and are constantly mistaken for performance. Rate variances on recurring costs compound and are constantly under-reacted to. Explain the top few by value, not every line. A variance report covering everything gets read as nothing. ## Tooling Planning: Anaplan, Pigment, Workday Adaptive Planning, Vena, Cube, and similar. A well-built spreadsheet on a clean chart of accounts beats a planning tool nobody has been staffed to maintain; move when budget owners outnumber the people who can hold the model in their head. Driver data comes from the ledger, the CRM, and the HRIS. The planning tool is only ever as current as those connections. ## Never - Present a forecast without saying what changed since the last one. - Let a department own an assumption that drives another department's numbers. - Report accuracy without measuring it. Track forecast error over time — it improves quickly once visible and never improves while unmeasured.
Concentrates marketing and sales effort on a named set of accounts rather than on volume — qualifying whether the model fits your economics at all, building the account list and the buying group inside each, tiering effort against account value, coordinating so the account experiences one campaign rather than several, and measuring account progression instead of leads. Use this to decide whether to run an account-based program, build one, or work out why an existing one produces activity and no pipeline.
Designs orchestrator-and-subagent hierarchies for a repository — splitting agents by exclusive write surface, pairing every producer with an independent auditor, and enforcing the split with a script that runs in CI. Use this whenever the user wants to set up, expand, audit, or fix a multi-agent or subagent structure for a codebase; asks how to divide work between agents; wants agent charters, roles, or a surface map written; or is hitting agents that collide on the same files, review their own work, or drift from their remit. Also use when sizing a roster or deciding whether a new agent is justified.
Governs models and AI systems in production — intended use, evaluation, monitoring, human oversight, documentation, and the decision to deploy or retire. Use this before deploying a model or AI feature, when defining evaluation criteria, when a model's behavior has drifted, when assessing AI risk or regulatory exposure, or when deciding whether an AI system is fit for a consequential decision.
Produces executive-level research — market sizing, competitor mapping, trend analysis, and strategic intelligence — grounded in cited sources with the confidence in each claim made explicit. Use this to analyze a market or industry, map competitors, evaluate a market-entry or build-versus-buy decision, produce a research brief, or assemble evidence for a decision. Also use when comparing options that need a structured, evidence-based verdict rather than an opinion.
Optimizes for AI assistants and AI-generated answers — being retrievable, being cited, and being represented accurately when a model answers on your behalf. Use this when traffic is shifting from links to AI answers, when a brand is misrepresented or absent in AI responses, when planning content for retrieval rather than ranking, or when deciding how AI search changes an existing SEO program.
Improves visibility and conversion in the App Store and Google Play — metadata, keywords, screenshots, ratings, and the listing experience that turns an impression into an install. Use this to audit or optimize an app listing, plan a launch listing, diagnose poor install conversion, or improve store search visibility.
Protects and restores data — backup coverage and scope, retention, immutability against ransomware, and proving restores actually work. Use this to design a backup regime, verify restores, plan retention, protect backups from ransomware, or recover from data loss.
Finds the single constraint currently limiting a business's growth and the highest-leverage moves against it, rather than producing a list of everything that could be improved. Use this when growth has stalled or slowed, when deciding where to spend limited time or budget, when revenue rises but profit does not, when prioritizing growth initiatives, or when a business feels busy without compounding.