Consensus planning

A consensus plan belongs to an S&OP cycle and has an owner, stage and response counts. Individual contributions retain the contributor, role, period, planning entity, amount, source and justification. That structure lets the Demand Planning Manager ask whether an increase is tied to a known deal, a new customer, a channel change or a capacity concern. It also makes the response visible to the contributor after review.

The custom Consensus Plans page gives the team a cycle distribution, plan detail and an operational list. Use it to gather the pieces of a plan in one place. The period forecast still carries the baseline, adjusted, consensus and final amounts separately. Reconciliation should explain the movement between those amounts through accepted contributions and recorded decisions.

• Open a cycle plan. Demand Planning Manager names the cycle and tracks expected and received contributions.
• Collect input. Sales Rep, Marketing Manager and Operations Lead submit amounts with a source and justification.
• Review each contribution. Demand Planning Manager reviews the submitted input and its decision before the plan is reconciled.

Agree who is expected to contribute for each planning entity and period. A single amount without a reference point can be ambiguous, so compare contributor amount with baseline and adjusted forecast values during review. Set a date for submissions before the demand review meeting. The expected and responded counts show where follow-up is needed, while the contribution statuses distinguish drafts from reviewed input.

The source choices include known deals, channel changes, new customers, competitor moves, macro signals and capacity constraints. Choose the closest real cause and write a short explanation. Reviewers should keep a rejected contribution visible with its review decision; replacing it with an unexplained consensus number loses the discussion trail.

A Sales Rep expects a new enterprise customer to increase one item’s demand in the West retail channel next month. The rep selects the planning entity and period, enters an amount, chooses the new-customer source and submits the reasoning. Marketing Manager may separately submit a promotion change, and Operations Lead may flag a capacity constraint. Demand Planning Manager checks whether the inputs overlap and reviews the recorded acceptance or rejection before reconciliation.

At the next meeting, show the baseline, adjusted and consensus figures for that period, together with the contribution decisions. The question is not simply which figure is largest. The team needs to know which demand is credible and which constraint belongs in supply review.

• Consensus plan board — Plans grouped by their current stage, owner and response coverage.
• Consensus contributions to review — Submitted inputs awaiting the manager’s decision.
• My consensus contributions — Each contributor’s own periods, reasons and review statuses.

Use consensus to publication and exception to decision.