What happens to the plan when reps leave?
Capacity plans hold two things still that never are: who leaves and how the team attains. Simulate both and the plan's real odds appear, usually closer to a coin flip than the deck admits.
Work Starter Monte Carlo Pro engine
After you install, this is the model to open.
Will the Sales Team Make the Number?
- In your spreadsheet, click the Sortia icon in the strip of icons down the right-hand edge. No strip? Click the arrow at the bottom-right to open it. You can also use Extensions, then Sortia, then Open Sortia.
- Click Start from a template and put that name in the search box.
- Pick the card with that name and click Load this template. It arrives on a new tab with real numbers already in it.
This one runs on a Pro engine, and every free install includes five full-quality runs on your own numbers, shared across all five Pro engines rather than five for each. After that, Pro is $199/year.
The answer
Twenty thousand simulated years:
- Bookings, mean
- $5.39M
- Plan
- $5.40M
- Miss the plan
- 50% of trials
Setting the target exactly at the expected value with no buffer for people risk makes the year a coin flip, and this model says so before the year does. The fixes are visible in the cells: a faster backfill, a ninth rep, or a plan set at the P40 instead of the mean.
The model
Eight reps on $900K quotas against a $5.4M plan. Attrition is a discrete draw (35% none, 40% one, 20% two, 5% three) and attainment is Normal around 85% with a 9-point spread.
| Reps and quota | 8 at $900K |
| Attrition | discrete 0/1/2/3 leavers |
| Attainment | Normal(85%, 9) |
| P(miss the plan) | simulated |
Once it is in your sheet
- The model arrives with real numbers in it and runs as it stands, so you can press the button first and understand it second.
- Change the numbers to yours. The sheet marks which cells are inputs and which hold formulas, and most labels carry a note explaining the row.
- Press the run button at the bottom of the panel. It is labeled for the tool you are in, and the result lands on its own tab, with a written reading of it beside the figures.
Never used Google Sheets? Start here goes the whole way, in seven steps, and assumes nothing.
Next question
- What is a pilot actually worth before you commit?Pilot First, or Go Big?
- What does each of the three budgets actually produce?Which of Three Budgets Should the Practice Plan On?
- Is the biggest engagement worth the two it blocks?Which Engagements Should We Take?
- Is filling every billable hour the wrong plan?Where Should My Own Week Go?
- Is 32 hours a week a target or a wish?What Does a Typical Billable Week Look Like?
- Is your biggest client really your best one?Which Clients Are Actually Worth Keeping?
Every model like this one, and the method behind them: Monte Carlo simulation.