Tentative project

A tentative project is any opportunity that the studio is tracking seriously but has not signed. Pitches in flight, options on existing contracts and pending renewals all qualify. Adding tentative projects to the capacity plan, rather than waiting for the contract, lets leadership see the staffing implications of the pipeline well before any commitment is made. The trade-off is that tentative numbers carry uncertainty and need to be flagged as such in every report that surfaces them.

A common refinement is to weight each tentative project by an estimated probability of closing, so the demand it adds to the forecast is proportional to confidence. A 1,200-hour pitch at 40 percent likelihood adds 480 weighted hours to the demand line. Producers and partners can also slice the same view by confirmed only, confirmed plus high-confidence tentatives or every tentative in the pipeline to model best, base and stretch scenarios.

Related: soft booking, demand forecasting, executive horizon.