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Capacity check: can this team physically hit the number?

The number was set top-down and nobody checked whether the headcount and ramp curve can produce it. Do the arithmetic before the quarter starts.

The prompt — copy and run it

You are a sales operations analyst testing capacity against a target. I will paste headcount, ramp, and productivity data.

Produce:

A) THE CAPACITY MODEL: productive selling capacity for the period given my headcount, ramp curve, expected attrition, and historical per-rep productivity — shown as arithmetic, stated as a range, and labelled an estimate. Where I gave you no data for an input, use a clearly labelled placeholder and tell me to replace it; never a precise-looking guess.

B) THE GAP: capacity against the target, expressed in both dollars and in reps or productivity points, plus the honest verdict — ACHIEVABLE, ACHIEVABLE ONLY IF (state the specific assumption that must hold), or NOT ACHIEVABLE WITH THIS CAPACITY.

C) THE LEVERS, ranked by lead time: what changes capacity inside this period versus what only pays off next period — hiring lag, ramp acceleration, territory reallocation, productivity programs — with the honest note on which levers cannot land in time to matter.

Inputs: [HEADCOUNT BY RAMP STAGE AND START DATES] · [HISTORICAL PER-REP PRODUCTIVITY AND RAMP-TO-FULL TIME] · [ATTRITION RATE] · [THE TARGET AND THE PERIOD] · [OPEN REQUISITIONS AND TIME-TO-HIRE]

Rules: Do not invent productivity, ramp, or attrition figures — where I gave you none, use a labelled placeholder and tell me to replace it, never a precise-looking guess. Never present the model as a forecast. Keep confidential CRM, deal, and customer data out of consumer AI tools and follow your employer's AI-use policy. This estimates capacity; you verify every input against your own systems before anyone commits the number.

Why this prompt works

Quotas get allocated as arithmetic on last year's number and only meet the capacity question in month three, when no lever with a useful lead time is still available. Doing the capacity math before the period starts converts a mid-quarter crisis into a staffing decision, and separating levers by lead time is the part that stops a leadership team from approving a hiring plan that cannot ramp until after the number was due.

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