NARRATIVE 02 / 05·The Projects narrative

Commercial intent to delivery reality.

How project execution preserves the case the deal was won on, surfaces staffing changes as they happen, and captures additional scope before margin is lost.

The pain

A deal is signed with clear assumptions: three senior consultants, $80k fixed price, 16-week delivery, 40% margin.

Two weeks in, one consultant is reassigned to another project. By week eight, scope has expanded twice without formal agreement. The project closes on time and on schedule, yet margin has fallen to 18%. A 22-point swing from the deal case, and no one can trace which decision cost it.

Profitdrive changes that pattern by preserving the commercial case the deal was won on, making staffing changes visible as they happen, and capturing additional scope before margin is lost.

What this narrative covers

The delivery layer downstream of Pipeline.

Projects is the delivery-execution layer that sits downstream of Pipeline. It is not a project-management database. It is where the commercial case behind a won deal becomes the operating baseline for delivery, and where staffing changes, phase shifts, and additional scope stay visible as financial decisions rather than after-the-fact explanations.

Five surfaces work together, anchored by one operational principle: the Project Plan is the canonical editing surface for project assumptions. Convert to Project promotes the Deal Model into the Project Plan without re-entry. From that moment, delivery reality is managed by updating plan assumptions, not spreadsheets.

Surface

Function

01

Project Plan

Canonical editing surface: roles, people, dates, phases, modes.

02

Projects List

Portfolio scan: health icons, period revenue and CM, Outlook vs Budget.

03

Financials Summary

Portfolio matrix: projects × months × scenario.

04

Extensions / CRs

Delivery-led scope capture: unsigned forecast, signed firm.

05

Gantt view

Cross-surface lens: projects and people side by side, read-only.

Five concrete front-end behaviours

What delivery does, and what the system carries forward.

BEHAVIOUR 01 / 05

Carry deal assumptions into delivery as the project baseline.

When an opportunity is Won, conversion to Project is one click. The Deal Model's roles, people, phases, commercial mode, and budget baseline promote into the Project Plan as a single transaction, with no re-entry and no re-confirmation of assumptions that were settled before the deal closed.

The baseline the deal was won on is preserved as the project's budget. Margin position is then always tracked against the case that justified the sale. If delivery later finds a constraint, such as a planned person on leave or a phase needing to slip, they adjust the plan post-conversion. The original commercial commitment stays intact as the reference point.

Projects created directly, without Convert to Project, do not carry this provenance until a budget is set. Provenance is the discipline mechanism: a project either has a budget baseline that matches what was sold, or it does not.

P//

Pipeline

Convert to Project · Confirmation

Convert to Project

WonNorthwind · ERP refresh$150,000 · 45.1% CMView Opportunity

Promotes to the Project Plan in one transaction:

Deal ModelPhase 1 T&M · Phase 2 FP

RolesEM · Senior Cons ×2 · Consultant

Named peoplePriya Shah · Marcus Hill · Hugo Bennett

Open rolesSenior Consultant · 1

After conversion: Project exists, click to view. Outlook reads against the budget baseline.

CancelConvert to Project

Convert to Project confirmation · phases, roles, people, open roles, commercial mode, and budget baseline promoted in one action.

BEHAVIOUR 02 / 05

Manage the Project Plan as the canonical editing surface.

The Project Plan is where project financials and allocations change. All downstream surfaces read from it.

When a team member is reassigned mid-project, the affected row converts to an open role: planning intent preserved, person removed, cost still calculated from grade. The plan can hold the role open, accept a substitute at lower cost, or scale back the allocation. Margin recalculates with each change, with the trade-off visible: "removing that senior costs us 6 points of margin; filling with a mid-level brings us back to 38%."

Staffing reversibility is built in. Remove a person and the role reopens. Add a person and the row fills in place, with no new row and no lost planning context. All downstream surfaces, including the People area, financial summaries, and Gantt, read from the Project Plan. What was planned and what is being executed stay synchronised.

Overview

Project Plan

Project Financials

Timeline & Actions

CancelSave

Greythorn Bank · Platform·Project Code PLATFORM·Project Type Time & Materials

Phase 1 · Design++ Add Person ▾

Phase 1 · Design 01 Jul – 25 Sep 2026Time & Materials ▾

RolePersonAlloc %RateRevenueCM%

Project ManagerHannah Williams100$1,540$97,02047%

Senior Consultant+Select Person…100$1,375$86,62545%

DesignerJoaquín Reyes50$1,650$20,62532%

138.5 days·2.2 FTE·67% staffed

CM% Δ vs Target+10 pp(target 35%)

Revenue $204,270Blended CM 45%

Project Plan · canonical editing surface · roles, named people, open role retained, summary recalculates as rows change. Illustrative compressed view; the full Project Plan also surfaces per-row start, end, days, and cost rate.

BEHAVIOUR 03 / 05

Scan project health and portfolio performance at a glance.

The Projects List shows every project in a date range with the financial position front and centre: client, project, type, start and end dates, period revenue, three structural-health indicators, and how recently each was updated. Contribution margin and the full-project Outlook-minus-Budget variance surface on drilling into a project, or in the Financials Summary, rather than as list columns.

Three structural-health indicators show whether the project is set up correctly: budget linked to the original opportunity, project plan exists, open roles exist. A days-since-updated indicator shows recency.

The list is a hygiene-and-financial scan in one. Any project with open roles and no plan is at structural risk. Any Fixed-Price project without a linked budget likely came in outside Convert to Project and lacks provenance. A row flagged on these signals is the prompt to drill in, where contribution margin against the case the project was modelled at comes into view. The summary strip totals the view: "7 projects, 3 starting this month, $236k revenue, 41% average CM."

P//

Caldera Group

Projects

New project

ProjectsGanttProject Financials Summary

Apr 2026 to Sep 2026

All clients

All billable

7 projects3 starting · 1 endingRevenue $236kAvg CM 41%

CLIENTPROJECTTYPESTARTENDREVENUEINDICATORSUPDATED

NorthwindERP refreshFP+T&M13 Apr01 Aug$42k1d

BrindlePlatformFP+T&M13 Apr01 Aug$62k2d

PembertonMargin studyT&M24 Mar30 May$28k4d

AtlasDiscoveryFP13 Apr10 May$20k1d

AtlasDeliveryT&M11 May25 Sep$30k1d

HelixStrategy sprintFP06 May13 Jun$18k11d

LinwoodRobotics ph.2T&M06 Apr25 Jul$36k3d

Budget linked Plan exists Open roles

Projects List · hygiene and financial scan · structural-health indicators · Outlook minus Budget baseline · low-CM row flagged.

BEHAVIOUR 04 / 05

Capture delivery-led scope changes, and link them back to Sales.

Three weeks into a Fixed-Price project, the client asks for additional reporting. Delivery creates a new phase in the Project Plan, marked unsigned. As the conversation evolves, the team refines roles, dates, and cost. The phase is a forecast, not a commitment.

Unsigned phases appear in the Extensions scenario on the firm's P&L Outlook, separate from the Contracted forecast. If the client declines, the phase is deleted and the Outlook updates immediately. If the client agrees, the phase is marked signed.

At signing, two options:

Mark signed only: phase becomes firm, revenue moves into Contracted, no Pipeline event.
Record sale now: atomically creates a Won opportunity in Pipeline, named "Extension: [Project] / [Phase]," traceable back to the project.

The second option reverses the normal flow. Instead of Sales creating a deal that delivery executes, Delivery confirms the change and Sales receives a traceable Won opportunity for reporting. The signature is the discipline mechanism: the forecast-to-firm transition is what moves the firm P&L.

BEHAVIOUR 05 / 05

See the financial impact of all projects across time horizons.

The Project Financials Summary is a portfolio matrix: projects down the rows, months across the columns. Each cell shows revenue, cost, and contribution margin for that project in that month. A portfolio totals row sums the view.

Three independent filters: time horizon (the month range), project/client scope (focus on a subset), and scenario (Contracted, Extensions, or Contracted + Extensions). Switching scenario from Contracted to Contracted + Extensions layers in unsigned scope without committing to it, which is useful for stress-testing whether pending change requests (the delivery-led, as-yet-unsigned extensions captured in the Project Plan) would close a margin gap.

In most PSAs, portfolio-level KPI surfacing across a time horizon with scenario awareness requires a BI export. Here it is the default view, reading directly from the Project Plan and the firm's cost facts. Margin tracks against the commercial assumptions the deals were won on, in real time.

P//

Caldera Group

Projects

ProjectsGanttProject Financials Summary

TimeApr to Jun 2026

ScopeAll clients

ScenarioContracted

PROJECTAPR 26MAY 26JUN 26Q2 TOTAL

Northwind$15.0k44%$12.6k44%$14.4k45%$42k44%

Brindle$18.0k32%$20.4k31%$23.6k33%$62k32%

Pemberton$12.8k52%$14.2k53%0$27k52%

Atlas · Discovery$7.2k40%$12.8k40%0$20k40%

Atlas · Delivery0$3.0k42%$6.6k42%$10k42%

Linwood$6.4k39%$9.6k39%$8.2k40%$24k39%

Portfolio$59.4k$72.6k$52.8k$185k39%

NoteStructure from staging; this portfolio matrix view was not directly captured. Flip Scenario to Contracted + Extensions to layer in unsigned scope.

Project Financials Summary · portfolio matrix · time horizon, project/client scope, and scenario as three independent cuts.

Sub-mode · Variance Lens

At the single-project level, Project Financials can switch from its month grid into a Variance Lens: a financial bridge from a chosen starting point to the current plan, for one project at a time. Teams compare against the sold baseline, a recent snapshot, or a custom review date, then see exactly what moved across five drivers: pricing, effort, team mix, cost rate, and scope. The starting point plus every explained change adds up to the current plan, so the bridge is a complete account of the movement rather than a list of the biggest items.

Overview

Project Plan

Project Financials

Timeline & Actions

Export

Meridian Energy·Grid Platform·PRJ-0204·11 May 2026 to 25 Sep 2026·Budget $1.20M·CM 38%

Month gridVariance Lens

AnchorSold baseline

PeriodFull project

StartPricingEffortMixCost rateScopeCurrent

Revenue$1.20M0+$70k00+$80k$1.35M

Cost$744k0+$42k+$22k+$30k+$50k$888k

Contribution$456k38%$462k34.2%

Delivery days1,2000+11000+601,370

ReconcilesStart plus the five drivers equals Current plan on revenue and cost. Revenue grew on scope and added effort; team mix and a cost-rate rise softened margin. Pricing held flat.

Variance Lens · single-project Project Financials · starting point to current plan · five explained drivers · revenue, cost, margin, and delivery days.

How this connects to the rest

This narrative does not stand alone.

To Pipeline

Convert to Project carries the Deal Model through to project delivery intact: same roles, people, phases, and commercial modes. The project's current outlook is calculated against the budget baseline seeded at conversion, so margin position is always relative to the case the deal was won on.

See the Pipeline narrative

To People

Adding a person to a plan triggers capacity and availability checks. Open roles are modelled financially using grade cost. The same cost resolution that drives the Project Plan governs bench cost and firm-level P&L.

See the People narrative

To Financials

Project margin and cost roll into the firm's monthly P&L Outlook, filterable by scenario. Signing an extension with Record sale now creates a Won opportunity in Pipeline that feeds firm-level Contracted revenue. The continuity closes the loop.

See the Financials narrative

To Dashboard

Projects surfaces, including list health, portfolio financials, and open roles, feed the Dashboard's Outlook and Drivers panels. Projects ending soon and extension opportunities appear as drivers, ranked by revenue impact. Open roles flow into the Open Demand headline.

See the Dashboard narrative

Closing

See how delivery teams execute against commercial intent, and how changes are captured without losing the original plan.

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