What is Scenario Planner?

Let’s face it. Companies like yours often have more ideas and work than resources. You do your best to take the right course of action but lack the ability to weigh multiple scenarios to identify the best course of action while optimizing resources and navigating shifting budgets. You need the ability to be nimble in your planning while also changing course quickly to adapt to changes. Workfront’s Scenario Planner is here to help. Scenario Planner gives you the ability to create and compare multiple high level scenarios to help navigate your organization through strategic road mapping while optimizing existing work. Scenario Planner is that missing piece in Workfront’s already robust resource planning and management suite of tools by identifying and prioritizing your initiatives based on the organization’s overall vision and strategy before digging in to optimize your resources for delivery. The purpose of the Scenario Planner is to drive speed to execution for your organizational level plans and help you make crucial decisions that drive delivery of predictable desired outcomes for your business. There are two approaches to using the Scenario Planner. As an organization manager you can use the Scenario Planner to plan fluidly, review scenarios for your high level initiatives, and gather feedback for the future in a cohesive way. Here, you can define the number of resources and the budget that your organization needs to deliver the strategic initiatives for your company. As a business unit or department manager, you can use the Scenario Planner to define departmental outcomes for the businesses. You can start by sketching out the required departmental initiatives to achieve those outcomes while specifying the resources and the budget needed to achieve them. Regardless of what your organization manager’s budget might be, you can communicate to them what your departmental needs are by defining the cost and resources needed for each initiative. After you complete this planning the organization manager will evaluate all initiatives, create multiple scenarios, and decide what would fit in the budget and what you must re-plan. Using the Scenario Planner you can achieve the following outcomes: create simplified high-level scenarios that outline the resources needed over time to execute the initiatives for your organization. Help you staff your organization appropriately in agreement with your long-term outcomes. Ensure that you don’t overestimate or underestimate your organization’s budget for those long term outcomes. Have a simplified view into anticipating resources, budgeting, or priority conflicts, to make more informed decisions. For example, you can learn when you might need to hire new employees, add budget, shift timelines or priorities. Display different scenarios for plans and initiatives with highlighted differences to quickly evaluate the effectiveness of each plan and select the best one for the organization. Without the correct access or permissions you may not be able to view the Scenario Planner area of Workfront nor manage plans or initiatives for your organization. For access to view the Scenario Planner your Workfront administrator must assign you the following access: A license with “View” access to Scenario Planner in your access level, a license with “View” access to financial data in your access level. For access to manage plans and initiatives, your Workfront administrator must assign you the following access so you can manage plans and their information in the Scenario Planner: A plan or work license with “Edit” access to Scenario Planner, a plan license with “Edit” access to financial data If you need to update financial information associated with a plan. To add the Scenario Planner as an option in the main menu for access, the user’s layout template needs to be updated to add the option. Navigate to the setup area and select “Interface” in the left column. Select “Layout Templates” to either create a new layout template or access an existing one. In the upper right of the layout template builder, click “Set Main Menu.” Make sure the Scenario Planner is placed in the “Active Item” section and click “Done” when complete. Now you are all set to access and use the Scenario Planner. -