Business Planning

SERIES 4.0 FEATURE COMING SOON

Overview

Business Planning enables you to conduct long-term planning, scenario analysis, and business resilience planning covering a period of 6 or 12 months. You can estimate the impact of changes in work volumes, turnover, automation, process improvement, and operating efficiency on your staffing needs.

Search and Filter

Allows you to refine the list of plans displayed in the plans screen by typing a partial or full plan name into the Search field.

Allows you to refine the list of plans displayed in the plans screen by filtering based on specific plan attributes.

Name

Confirms the name of each of the Business Plans that have been created for the selected workgroup to date.

Plan Type

Confirms the Type of each plan displayed in the list.

Base: Contains all data used to create scenario plans.

Scenario: Derived from the base plan with changes for different anticipated situations.

Plan Length

Confirms the plan length either 6 or 12 months.

Owner

Displays the name linked to the account used to create the plan.

Created Date

Displays the date the plan was created.

Allows you to create a duplicate of an existing Base Plan, once created you can amend the base data and apply scenario plans.

Allows you to delete both Base and Scenario plans. Please be aware that deleting a Base plan will delete all scenario plans attached to it.

When a user's screen zoom level is set to 150% or higher, the Name section of the table will remain visible, while the other columns will be replaced by an information button. This adjustment ensures an improved display of information.

Creating a Base Business Plan

To create a Business Plan, select the icon next to the Plans header in the Business Planning screen.

This will prompt the Create Plan dialogue box to open.

Name

Enter a name for the plan up to 100 characters.

It can be useful to include the period covered by the plan in the name.

Start Month

Set the first month of the period the plan will cover.

Click the icon to access the calendar function or type the full name and year directly into the cell

Plan Length

Select the 6- or 12-month plan length option from the drop-down menu.

Historic Period

Select the number of months of historic data you would like to use to feed the initial Demand and Base Supply fields when the plan is created. You can choose between the most recent 6 or 12 months of data by selecting the relevant option from the drop-down menu.

Create

Once you have set your plan parameters click the Create button to create your plan.

Once you click the create button your Base Business Plan will open.

Supply v Demand

This section displays your capacity position for each month based on the anticipated Demand and the Supply you have to meet it.

Demand

This section displays the anticipated Demand, how much core work is expected to need completing for the workgroup overall during the plan period.

Enter your anticipated Demand in FTE by typing the required values directly into the relevant cells.

Supply

This section displays the anticipated Supply, how much resource is expected to be available to work on the Demand during the plan period.

The Base Supply fields will automatically populate based on the FTE linked to the Workgroup in the previous month.

The value for the first month of the plan can be amended by typing the required value directly into the cell, this value will then carry across the remaining plan units.

If you expect Base Supply to change due to the recruitment of new team members you can reflect this in the New Hires section by typing the number of new FTE directly into the cell for the relevant month.

If you expect Base Supply to change due to leavers you can reflect this in the Attrition section by typing the number of FTE expected to leave the workgroup directly into the cell for the relevant month.

Performance

In this section you can enter information about the current performance of the workgroup. A reflective level of Productivity can be typed directly into the relevant cell for each month covered by the plan.

These values will automatically populate based on the total values for the 6 or 12 months of historical data selected when creating the plan.

The Overall Shrinkage value is a total of the values entered into the 3 sub categories:

Diverted, enter the percent of your Overall Supply that you expect to invest in Diverted activities during the plan period by typing the value directly into the cell.
Downtime, enter the percent of your Overall Supply that you expect to be lost to Downtime during the plan period. For Business Planning Downtime does not include Annual Leave.
Annual Leave, enter the percent of your Overall Supply that you expect to be utilised for Annual Leave during each month of the planning period.

These values will be pre-populated. Each element of shrinkage is calculated from the historical data selected during plan creation, and the Overall Shrinkage is the sum of these elements:

Sourcing Demand

If you have built Business Plans covering previous months you can Source the Base Demand data from those by selecting the Source from Plan button

This will prompt the Select Plan to Import Data From dialogue box to open.

Select the plan you would like to source data from and click the Add into Plan button. You can source demand from a previous plan if:

• No Outcomes or Cases have been created in the current plan.

• The plan being sourced from is a plan type “Base” and matches the plan length of the plan the user is sourcing to.

All the demand data from the selected plan will now appear in your current plan. If you added Outcomes or Cases to the Demand section of the plan you are sourcing from this data will pull through.

Sourced data can be amended by typing the required value directly into the relevant cell.

Once you have created your Base Business Plan you can begin to add scenarios to understand how different situations will impact your Demand v Supply capacity.

Your Overall Supply is

And your Overall Supply versus Demand is

Creating a Scenario Plan

To create a Scenario Plan, click the Create Scenario Plan button.

This button will only be available to click if you have entered data for at least one of the plan months against the following metrics:

Overall Demand
Base Supply
Productivity
Overall Shrinkage

This will prompt the Create a Scenario Plan dialogue box to open where you can enter a name for your Scenario Plan indicating the scenario it represents.

Any number of scenario plans can be created from one base plan.

Once in a scenario plan, the values are sourced from the base plan. Therefore, if changes are made in the base plan, all linked scenario plans will be updated to reflect a change in these sourced values.

The values in an individual scenario plan can only be changed by applying scenarios.

When a scenario plan is created, it introduces the concept of true demand and true supply. This is achieved by factoring these metrics by the productivity and shrinkage values from the base plan.

In a scenario plan, the following is true

We apply this to each demand row in the scenario plan

We apply this to both Base Supply and New Hire rows in the scenario plan

A new plan will then be produced that uses the data entered in your Base Business Plan for Demand, Supply and Performance to provide a view of your anticipated Overall Supply and Demand position.

Scenario Testing

For each category within the Demand, Supply and Performance sections you can begin to add your scenarios. To do this click the button next to the element you wish to add a scenario to.

The Scenarios relevant to that element will then be displayed:

Plan Item	Available Scenarios	Impact
Overall Demand	Add Demand	When applied, there are no values from the base plan to consider, so the values the user enters in the scenario will just be factored by the productivity in the scenario plan and added to overall demand. Example: User Added Demand = 20 Scenario Plan Productivity = 95% Result = 20 / 0.95 = 21.1
Outcome / Case Level Demand	Remove Demand	This scenario will remove all demand relating to an outcome or case for the selected months, resulting in a decrease of Overall Demand. When applied, this scenario will change the value of an outcome or case from the base plan to 0. Example: Base Plan Outcome Demand = 50 Remove Demand scenario is applied Result = 50 – 50 = 0
	Demand Change	This scenario will increase or decrease demand by either an FTE or % value When applied, the value entered in the scenario will consider the original value in the base plan, and then re-factor this updated demand by the productivity value in the scenario plan. Example: Base Plan Overall Demand = 100 Demand Change Scenario = Increase by 10% Scenario Plan Productivity = 95% Result = 100 + 100*0.1 = 110 110 / 0.95 = 115.8
	Process Improvement	This scenario will decrease demand by either an FTE or % value When applied, the value entered in the scenario will consider the original value in the base plan, and then re-factor this updated demand by the productivity value in the scenario plan Example: Base Plan Overall Demand = 100 Demand Change Scenario = Decrease by 10% Scenario Plan Productivity = 95% Result = 100 - 100*0.1 = 90 90 / 0.95 = 94.7
New Hire	New Hire	The result of this scenario will impact both the new hire and productivity rows in the plan; if the user decides to apply a learning curve. Without Learning Curve When the user applies this scenario, the FTE value entered for the number of new hires will be factored by the Overall Shrinkage value in the scenario plan. Example: Current Plan New Hire = 0 New Hire Scenario = 20 Current Plan Overall Shrinkage = 25% Result = 0 + 20 = 20 20 – (20 x 0.25) = 15 With Learning Curve If a user decided to apply a learning curve with the new hires they add to the plan, then the above will be true for providing the number of new hires to the plan, but in addition we will factor the productivity to account for the learning curve. Learning curve values can range from 0-100% - and the impacts on productivity will be carried through the plan until the new hires reach 100%. Each week of the learning curve must be populated with a value, and each value must be equal to or greater than the previous week of the curve. To factor the impact on productivity, we would first convert the weekly values provided in the learning curve to monthly values to match up with the plan, and then compute a number of calculations to arrive on the final impact. Example (using the previous example above to calculate the number of new hires): New Hire Scenario = 15 Learning Curve = Week 1 – 25% Week 2 – 50% Week 3 – 75% Week 4 – 100% New Hires Monthly Effectiveness = Average (Weeks 1-4) = 62.5% Current Plan Overall Supply = 77.5 New Hire FTE (Factored by Monthly Effectiveness) = 15 x 62.5% = 9.4 Total FTE Supply = 77.5 + 9.4 = 86.9 Current Plan Productivity = 105% Final FTE Supply = 86.9 x 105% = 91.2 Final Plan Productivity = 91.2 / (15 + 77.5) = 99% In this example, the original productivity in the plan was 105%, but due to the impact of 15FTE working at 62.5% effectiveness, the plan productivity changes to 99%
Attrition	Attrition	This scenario will increase or decrease attrition by the desired amount, in FTE Example: Planned Attrition Value = 5 Attrition scenario = Increase by 2 Result = 5 + 2 = 7
Productivity	Productivity Change	This scenario will increase or decrease productivity by the desired amount, in % Example: Planned Productivity Value = 90% Productivity Change scenario = Increase by 5% Result = 90% + 5% = 95% This result will be the new productivity value that demand is factored by in the scenario plan
Diverted	Shrinkage Change	This scenario will increase or decrease the selected shrinkage element by the desired amount, in % The result of this scenario will mean a change in the Overall Shrinkage Example: Planned Diverted Value = 10% Shrinkage Change scenario = Increase Diverted by 5% Result = 10% + 5% = 15% This result will feed the new Overall Shrinkage value that supply rows (base supply & new hire) are factored by in the scenario plan.
Downtime	Shrinkage Change
Annual Leave	Shrinkage Change
	SLA Change	Coming Soon

When you select the button next to the relevant line the Scenarios menu will open.

Click the icon next to the name of the Scenario you would like to apply to expand the Scenario setup form.

Description

Add a description for the scenario you are adding up to 250 characters.

Type of Change

Select if you are applying an increase or decrease to the base values. This option will only appear for Scenarios that can apply both an increase and a decrease.

Unit

Select the unit that you would like to apply to apply the change in, either FTE or as a percentage of the base plan values. This option only appears for Demand scenarios. Supply will be added as FTE and Performance as percentage of base plan values.

Increase / Decrease by

Based on the scenario you have selected and the options you have chosen to apply it enter the value of the change you would like to make. Either the number of FTE you would like to amend the value by or the percentage of base plan values.

Apply to

Select to apply the scenario to every month in your plan period using the Entire Period option or for selected months using the Select Months option. For the New Hires scenario this option does not appear, you select the month that the new hire will join the workgroup.

Apply

Once you have entered all the required information for your Scenario click the Apply button to apply it to your plan.

When you apply the Scenario, a new row will appear in your plan underneath the line item you applied the Scenario to. This details the name of the Scenario and the change it is making to your base values.

Your base values will also update to reflect the change. Your Scenario Plan will automatically save the changes as you are making them.

You can remove a Scenario from a plan if it is no longer applicable or you wish to amend the details in it using the icon. For amendments you can then apply the same Scenario again with the updated details.

As you apply Scenarios to your plan your Supply vs Demand graph and Overall Supply vs Demand values will update to reflect the changes you are making, allowing you to see the impact of the changes you are making.

Once completed you may wish to update the name of your scenario plan to indicate that it is the plan you have decided to action, this is helpful if you have created multiple plans. To edit the plan name, select the icon.

Overtype the plan name and click the icon to save your changes and to cancel them.

Series 4.0 links
Smart Skills Centre
Business Planning
Executive Insights
Opi