Put the constraint at the top of the packet
This original illustrative example uses a three-person service team. For the first quarter, the team has estimated 240 combined project hours after routine service work and planned leave. That is a proposed planning allowance, not verified capacity or a three-person full-time total.
The annual goal is to make service delivery more reliable while evaluating a new offer. The team has three proposed initiatives:
| Initiative | Purpose | Proposed Q1 hours | First milestone | Missing information |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maintenance | Address known recurring service issues. | 120 | Confirm issue list and sequence in January. | Validate estimate with delivery owner. |
| Documentation | Make recurring work easier to hand off. | 80 | Complete and test one procedure draft in January. | Confirm reviewer availability. |
| New offer pilot | Test whether a proposed service fits customer needs. | 100 | Review interview evidence before setting pilot scope. | Customer evidence and cash cost not confirmed. |
The proposals total 300 hours, which is 60 more than the estimated allowance. Maintenance plus documentation uses 200 hours, leaving 40. That remainder does not fit the 100-hour pilot. Do not mark all three “agreed” or stretch the pilot into the gap without changing and approving its scope.
Annual plans connect priorities with owners, milestones, resources, and review points. Those elements are reflected in the Asana annual planning template. The decision sequence and numbers here are an original meeting design, not a prescribed planning method or a budget recommendation.
A 120-minute decision agenda
| Minutes | Discussion | Required output |
|---|---|---|
| 0-10 | Confirm the year's direction and who can decide priorities. | Goal and decision authority stated. |
| 10-30 | Review prior-year evidence and unresolved commitments. | Carryover work and evidence gaps identified. |
| 30-50 | Examine Q1 capacity and resource assumptions. | 240-hour allowance validated or flagged for revision. |
| 50-80 | Compare the three initiatives against the goal and constraint. | Proposed starting work and explicit deferral. |
| 80-105 | Set owners, first milestones, and dependencies. | Named responsibility, dates, and unresolved prerequisites. |
| 105-120 | Read decisions back and schedule review. | Decision record and next capacity/evidence check. |
The blocks total 120 minutes. Send the initiative table and underlying estimates beforehand. If the team spends the comparison block reconstructing missing estimates, record what is needed and hold the affected commitment open.
Separate a proposal from a decision
An illustrative decision record could say: “Proposed Q1 starting work: maintenance and documentation, 200 hours combined. New offer pilot: proposed deferral pending customer evidence and capacity review. Remaining 40 hours: not yet assigned.” This is a sample for discussion, not an account of a real approval.
During the actual meeting, change the status to agreed only when the authorized participants make the decision. Capture the owner and date then; leave them as [OWNER TO CONFIRM] and [DATE TO CONFIRM] in preparation.
Add a first-quarter dependency check before the deferred initiative can restart. Ask whether customer evidence exists, whether the cash cost is known, and whether capacity is available without displacing agreed work. A favorable opinion about the offer does not answer those questions.
Prompt for a planning packet
Prepare an annual planning meeting agenda and decision packet in US English.
Year and meeting duration: [inputs]
Annual goals and evidence from last year: [paste inputs]
Participants and decision authority: [inputs]
Competing initiatives with purpose, estimates, resources, and dependencies: [inputs]
Available capacity, unit, time window, and exclusions: [inputs]
Known carryover work and budget constraints: [inputs or blank]
Required plan/budget/tracker formats: [inputs]
Sequence the meeting through goal confirmation, evidence review, capacity assumptions, initiative comparison, decisions, ownership/milestones, and next review. Give blocks minutes and concrete outputs. Compare demand only with capacity in the same unit and period. Show arithmetic and conflicts. Distinguish proposed, agreed, deferred, and unresolved work; do not approve anything on our behalf. Include a deferral reason, restart condition, owner-to-confirm, and review-date-to-confirm for open items.
Do not invent budgets, staffing, hours, prior results, customer evidence, approvals, or dates. Use [NEEDED: input] visibly and retain contradictory inputs for resolution. Check the meeting time total. Return a packet that can be transferred to our required records; do not replace the maintained annual plan or task tracker.
Read the selected work against the constraint one last time. Transfer actual decisions, owners, and review dates into the maintained annual plan and tracker. A useful finish is a feasible first commitment and an explicit condition for revisiting deferred work.
Optional: read an HTML decision packet in NOS
If you already make an HTML version of the initiative comparison, NOS can save and render that packet for a planning review. Use it to read the capacity assumption beside the proposed choices; keep the budget, approvals, and maintained plan in their original systems.