I reviewed our Q3 plan at the end of the quarter. We'd committed to five strategic initiatives:
- Rebuild competitive intelligence program
- Launch customer advisory board
- Develop new messaging framework
- Create sales certification program
- Research expansion market
Actual completion: 1 of 5.
What happened? Urgent work consumed us.
Product launched features without notice. Sales needed battle cards for deals closing this week. Marketing needed PMM support for campaigns launching tomorrow. Executives requested research for board meetings next week.
Reactive work filled 80% of our time. Strategic priorities got pushed every week until the quarter ended and we'd shipped almost none of them.
This pattern repeated every quarter. We'd plan ambitious strategic work, then spend the quarter firefighting.
I built a quarterly planning process that actually balanced reactive and strategic work. Not aspirational plans that get abandoned. Realistic commitments based on actual capacity.
Here's what worked.
The Problem: Planning Like Reactive Work Doesn't Exist
Our failed Q3 plan:
Strategic initiatives (5):
- Project A: 120 hours
- Project B: 80 hours
- Project C: 100 hours
- Project D: 60 hours
- Project E: 40 hours
Total: 400 hours (10 weeks of full-time work for one person)
Team capacity: 5 PMMs × 40 hours/week × 12 weeks = 2,400 hours
Sounds reasonable: 400 strategic hours out of 2,400 total hours = 17% of capacity.
What we forgot: Reactive work.
Actual time breakdown:
Reactive work that happened:
- Product launches (planned and surprise): 600 hours
- Sales deal support: 400 hours
- Competitive battle card updates: 200 hours
- Executive requests: 150 hours
- Marketing campaign support: 200 hours
Total reactive: 1,550 hours (65% of actual capacity)
Remaining capacity: 2,400 - 1,550 = 850 hours
Time for strategic work: 850 hours
But we'd planned 400 hours of strategic projects AND didn't account for:
- Team meetings: 120 hours
- 1:1s and coaching: 80 hours
- Administrative overhead: 100 hours
- PTO and holidays: 200 hours
Total overhead: 500 hours
Actual capacity for strategic work: 850 - 500 = 350 hours
We'd planned 400 hours of strategic work with only 350 hours of capacity.
No wonder we shipped 1 of 5 strategic initiatives.
The New Framework: Capacity-Based Planning
The shift: Start with actual capacity, not aspirational goals.
Step 1: Calculate True Available Capacity
Total theoretical capacity:
5 PMMs × 40 hours/week × 12 weeks = 2,400 hours
Subtract predictable overhead:
- Team meetings (90 min/week): 112 hours
- 1:1s (30 min per person/week): 75 hours
- All-hands and training: 60 hours
- PTO and holidays: 200 hours
Productive capacity: 1,953 hours
Step 2: Reserve Capacity for Reactive Work
Historical reactive work (last 3 quarters average):
- Product launches: 550 hours/quarter
- Sales support: 380 hours/quarter
- Competitive updates: 220 hours/quarter
- Executive requests: 140 hours/quarter
- Marketing support: 180 hours/quarter
Average reactive work: 1,470 hours (75% of productive capacity)
Reserve 75% of capacity for reactive work.
Remaining for strategic: 483 hours
That's what we actually have for strategic initiatives.
Not 2,400 hours. Not 1,953 hours. 483 hours.
Step 3: Prioritize Strategic Work to Fit Available Capacity
Strategic initiatives we wanted to do:
| Initiative | Hours | Priority | Business Impact |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rebuild competitive program | 120 | High | High |
| Customer advisory board | 80 | Medium | Medium |
| New messaging framework | 100 | High | High |
| Sales certification | 60 | High | Medium |
| Expansion market research | 40 | Medium | High |
Total: 400 hours
Available: 483 hours
Can we do all five?
No. Because we need buffer for:
- Initiatives taking longer than estimated
- Unexpected strategic work (new competitor, market shift)
- Time to actually implement what we plan
The rule: Only commit to 70% of available strategic capacity.
70% of 483 hours = 338 hours
Now prioritize to fit 338 hours:
Must-do (High priority × High impact):
- Rebuild competitive program: 120 hours
- New messaging framework: 100 hours
- Sales certification: 60 hours
Total committed: 280 hours
Remaining capacity: 58 hours
Next priority (Medium × High):
- Expansion market research: 40 hours
Final committed plan: 320 hours (out of 338 available)
Deferred to next quarter:
- Customer advisory board: 80 hours (Medium priority, Medium impact)
This fits our actual capacity with buffer.
The Planning Process That Works
Week 1 of planning (before quarter starts):
Monday: Analyze Last Quarter
What we review:
Reactive work actual:
- Did reactive work match our 75% estimate?
- What surprised us?
- What can we make more predictable?
Strategic work completion:
- What did we finish?
- What slipped and why?
- Were estimates accurate?
Capacity utilization:
- Did we over/under-commit?
- Where was time wasted?
Example insights:
"Reactive work was actually 80% this quarter because Sales had 3 major RFPs requiring custom competitive analysis. Should we budget 80% next quarter?"
"Messaging framework took 140 hours instead of 100. Our estimates are too optimistic. Add 20% buffer."
Tuesday-Wednesday: Gather Strategic Priorities
Stakeholder input sessions:
Product: What launches are coming? What market research do they need?
Sales: What competitive threats? What enablement gaps?
Marketing: What campaigns? What positioning updates?
Executive: What board priorities? What strategic questions?
Our own priorities: What technical debt? What program improvements?
Output: Long list of possible strategic initiatives (usually 15-20 ideas)
Thursday: Prioritization Framework
Score each initiative on 2 dimensions:
Business impact (1-5):
- 5 = Directly drives revenue or prevents major risk
- 3 = Enables other teams to drive revenue
- 1 = Nice to have, minimal business impact
PMM capability building (1-5):
- 5 = Builds critical capability we're missing
- 3 = Improves existing capability
- 1 = Maintains current state
Priority score = Impact × Capability
Example:
| Initiative | Impact | Capability | Score | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Competitive program | 5 | 5 | 25 | 120 |
| Messaging framework | 5 | 4 | 20 | 100 |
| Sales certification | 4 | 4 | 16 | 60 |
| Market research | 4 | 3 | 12 | 40 |
| Customer advisory board | 3 | 3 | 9 | 80 |
Sort by score. Commit from top until you hit capacity limit.
Friday: Finalize Plan and Socialize
Create quarterly plan document:
Section 1: Context
- Company priorities this quarter
- PMM capacity and reactive work allocation
- How we prioritized
Section 2: Strategic Commitments (3-5 initiatives)
- Initiative description
- Business outcome expected
- Owner and timeline
- Success metrics
Section 3: Reactive Work Reserves
- Expected product launches
- Anticipated sales support needs
- Known competitive threats
Section 4: What We're NOT Doing
- Deferred initiatives and why
- What changed from last quarter
Share with stakeholders:
- Product, Sales, Marketing leadership
- Get buy-in on priorities
- Set expectations on what's NOT happening
The Tracking System
Don't plan and forget. Track weekly.
Monday team standup includes:
Strategic initiative updates:
- % complete
- On track / at risk / blocked
- Help needed
Reactive work consumed:
- How much time went to reactive work this week?
- Trending up or down vs. budget?
- Any surprises?
Capacity reallocation:
- Do we need to shift resources?
- Are strategic initiatives slipping?
- Should we descope or push something?
Example conversation:
PMM: "Competitive program is at risk. Estimated 120 hours, we've spent 80 and we're only 50% complete."
Me: "What's driving overrun?"
PMM: "More competitors than we thought. Each takes 20 hours not 15."
Me: "Options: Descope to top 3 competitors instead of 5, or push completion to next quarter?"
Team: "Descope. Top 3 competitors cover 85% of deals anyway."
This prevents end-of-quarter surprises.
The Mid-Quarter Review (Week 6)
Purpose: Validate plan or adjust before it's too late.
Review questions:
On reactive work:
- Is reactive work tracking to 75% estimate?
- If over, what's driving it?
- Do we need to descope strategic work?
On strategic initiatives:
- Are we on track to complete committed work?
- Any initiatives at high risk?
- Should we cut scope or shift resources?
On strategic priorities:
- Have company priorities shifted?
- New urgent initiatives emerged?
- Should we swap anything?
Example decision:
"Sales support is running 90% instead of 75% because we're in end-of-quarter push. Realistic assessment: We won't finish sales certification program this quarter. Options: 1) Push to next quarter, 2) Descope to just top 3 topics instead of 10."
Decision: Descope to top 3 topics. Ship partial program this quarter, expand next quarter.
This prevents pretending everything is on track when it's not.
The End-of-Quarter Retrospective
Week 13 (first week of new quarter):
Review what we committed:
- Strategic initiatives: 4 planned
- Completion: 3 fully done, 1 partially done
- Success rate: 75% full completion, 100% made meaningful progress
Review reactive work:
- Budgeted: 75% of capacity
- Actual: 78% of capacity
- Variance: +3% (acceptable)
What worked:
- Capacity-based planning prevented over-commitment
- Mid-quarter review caught risks early
- Weekly tracking kept us honest
What didn't work:
- Underestimated complexity of messaging framework (100 hours → 130 hours)
- Didn't account for exec requests spiking in board prep month
Learnings for next quarter:
- Add 20% buffer to strategic estimates
- Reserve extra 5% capacity in board prep months (Feb, May, Aug, Nov)
This creates continuous improvement in planning accuracy.
For Teams Managing PMM Capacity at Scale
As PMM teams grow, tracking capacity allocation across reactive work (launches, sales support, competitive updates) and strategic initiatives becomes complex. Some teams find value in consolidating capacity planning with work execution systems. For example, platforms like Segment8 demonstrate how launch timelines, competitive intelligence workflows, and strategic program tracking can be integrated—providing visibility into both reactive workload and strategic initiative progress in unified systems rather than scattered across project management tools and spreadsheets.
The Uncomfortable Truth About PMM Planning
Most PMM teams fail at quarterly planning because they plan like reactive work doesn't exist.
The broken pattern:
Q1 planning: Ambitious strategic plan (5-7 initiatives)
Q1 execution: Reactive work consumes team, strategic work barely moves
Q1 review: "We got busy, couldn't finish everything"
Q2 planning: Even MORE ambitious plan ("We'll be more disciplined this time")
Q2 execution: Same pattern repeats
Result: PMM always reactive, never strategic. Stakeholders lose confidence.
The working pattern:
Plan with actual capacity:
- Total capacity: 2,400 hours
- Overhead: 500 hours
- Reactive work reserve: 1,470 hours (75%)
- Available for strategic: 483 hours
- Commit to 70%: 338 hours
Prioritize ruthlessly:
- Score initiatives (impact × capability)
- Commit from top until capacity limit
- Defer everything else
Track weekly:
- Are we on track?
- Is reactive work exceeding budget?
- Do we need to adjust?
Review mid-quarter:
- Catch risks early
- Descope or defer if needed
Retrospective:
- What worked?
- What didn't?
- How to improve planning accuracy?
Our results:
Before capacity-based planning:
- Strategic initiatives planned: 5-7 per quarter
- Completion rate: 20-40%
- Stakeholder trust: Low ("PMM always promises, rarely delivers")
After capacity-based planning:
- Strategic initiatives committed: 3-4 per quarter
- Completion rate: 75-90%
- Stakeholder trust: High ("PMM delivers what they commit")
Better to commit to 3 and deliver 3 than commit to 7 and deliver 2.
The teams that execute strategic work:
- Plan with actual capacity (not theoretical)
- Reserve 70-80% for reactive work (based on history)
- Commit to 70% of remaining capacity (leave buffer)
- Track weekly (catch problems early)
- Review mid-quarter (adjust before it's too late)
- Retrospective (improve planning accuracy)
The teams that stay perpetually reactive:
- Plan ambitiously without capacity analysis
- Assume reactive work will somehow decrease (it won't)
- Over-commit strategic initiatives
- Don't track until end of quarter
- Make excuses for missed commitments
- Repeat same mistakes next quarter
Start with actual capacity. Reserve for reactive work. Commit to what fits. Track weekly. Adjust mid-quarter.
That's how PMM balances reactive and strategic work.
That's how you deliver on commitments instead of making excuses.
Build the planning process. Respect capacity constraints. Ship what you commit.