CPO deep dive on Headcount Planning

This one brings us full circle - after gaining insights from HR and Finance, we now turn to the critical perspective of a Budget Owner. Today, we're hearing from Felix Schmidt, Chief Product Officer at Vimcar & Avrios, who has overseen various planning cycles over his nine-year tenure at the company, and currently leads a team of 20+ people.

Felix underscores the critical role of a Budget Owner in the headcount planning process:

1. Regular Reviews: On a monthly basis, Felix collaborates with the FP&A team to review headcount budgets. This process enables him to gauge year-to-day spend, and, if necessary, adjust forecasts or repurpose budgets from other pools.

2. Strategic Alignment: Understanding the company’s strategic objectives is key. Felix translates these strategic goals into a product strategy, identifies skill and capacity gaps in his team, and then budgets for and prioritizes hiring needs accordingly.

3. Transparent Collaboration: He stresses the importance of continuous communication with the Talent Acquisition team. This ensures that priorities are regularly reconfirmed, and capacity for product roles is transparent.

The biggest challenge…

…Felix identifies in headcount planning is aligning strategic goals across all business units. He believes product leaders should support the CEO in ensuring this alignment and clarity. If priorities are well aligned, a lot of future back-and-forth can be avoided.

Stay tuned for more insights as we will draw our first conclusions from the the first three conversations!