Time Core · Year Wheel · Module
Load across the year
How work distributes against a capacity that is not constant, and where the year is already over-committed.
The idea
How it works
The calendar shows fifty-two weeks. After leave, holidays, reporting periods and the freeze windows, the weeks actually available for discretionary work are considerably fewer.
Plans are built on the calendar and delivered from the real capacity, and the difference is where every annual plan goes wrong.
Working with it
In practice
- 01
Calculate the real available weeks
After leave, holidays and fixed commitments. The number is usually a shock.
- 02
Plot committed work by month
Against that capacity rather than against the calendar.
- 03
Find the over-committed months
They exist before anything new is added and they are the reason things slip.
- 04
Move what can move
Flexible work out of full months. This is the cheapest planning improvement available.
One level in
The components of load across the year
A component is something that exists afterwards which did not exist before — a deliverable or a mechanism, not an intention.
Plans are built on the calendar and delivered from the real capacity. The difference is where the year goes wrong.
The other modules in year wheel
The cycle
What actually repeats annually — the demand pattern, the operating rhythm and the planning cycle — drawn rather than assumed.
LearnFixed points
The dates that cannot move: statutory deadlines, contractual dates, industry events and periods when nothing can be changed.
LearnThe review rhythm
Where the organisation’s reviews sit in the year — the mechanism by which the whole framework gets used rather than consulted.
Learn