Stop committing to plans your teams cannot actually resource.
Most program reviews look at status. Helium looks at whether the plan is actually feasible. It compares committed work against real capacity, scarce skills, budgets, calendars, vendors, equipment, and dependencies, then prepares rebalancing options leaders can approve with evidence.
Connected Device Launch
DVT readiness · Nov 14
140% across three programs
Unassigned · fixture plan in draft
Committed to another launch
8 units after field trial pull
Booked Nov 14 · 4 days late
Capacity conflict detected
Five resource rails out of line · DVT gate cannot be proven on the committed date with current capacity.
Helium recommends
Add capacity to protect DVT readiness · approval routed to VP Engineering + Finance
One green program · five capacity rails out of line · diagnosed in real time
A green program with stale assumptions is not free.
On a complex program with a multimillion dollar envelope, every week the plan stays infeasible burns idle capacity, pushes scope cuts later in the cycle, and compounds downstream slip.
Idle program capacity
~$58K / wk
Engineers waiting on resourcing decisions instead of executing scope
Late cycle scope cuts
+12 to 18%
Features dropped at DVT cost more than features dropped at planning
Schedule slip exposure
+2.4 days / wk
Each week a green but infeasible plan continues, downstream gates compound
Decision latency
21d → 3d
Median time from feasibility flag to approved rebalance
Not "AI assigns people to tasks." A governed decision path.
Resource decisions involve managers, finance, HR, vendor terms, team morale, and program politics. Helium prepares the decision so leaders can make it faster with evidence, then carries the approved change back into the work.
Monitor demand
Catch the change before the plan starts lying
Helium watches roadmaps, schedules, tickets, resource trackers, finance models, hiring plans, vendor commitments, calendars, Slack, Teams, and risk registers. It notices when a commitment moves but its assumptions do not.
DVT date pulled forward 11 days · staffing assumptions not revalidated
Model capacity
From spreadsheets to a decision grade model
Helium normalizes committed work, required roles, named owners, available capacity, budget envelopes, vendor SOWs, physical constraints, and competing priorities into one capacity model with confidence and freshness on every input.
People · skills · vendors · equipment · approvals · all in one ledger
Diagnose feasibility
Name the milestone risk, not just the overage
Helium does not flag generic overallocation. It identifies the specific gate that is no longer resourced, why, and what evidence supports the call.
DVT readiness exposed · firmware, MFG test, units, lab all out of line
Prepare options
Decision ready alternatives, not abstract math
Helium builds the rebalancing alternatives: protect the date, preserve scope, add capacity, or reduce risk. Each option includes schedule impact, cost impact, teams affected, approvals required, and source evidence.
4 options scored against schedule, cost, risk, and approval path
Route approval
Make the decision path explicit
Helium routes the recommendation to the right owners with a cited pre read so VP Engineering, Finance, and program leadership can decide with the same evidence in front of them.
VP Engineering + Finance · pre read attached · 48 hour SLA
Update systems
Carry the decision back into the work
After approval, Helium updates the capacity model, opens follow up tasks, adjusts the risk register, notifies affected owners, drafts the stakeholder note, and monitors whether the rebalancing actually happens.
Capacity model · risk register · owner notifications · executive memo
The plan is rarely wrong on day one. It goes stale.
The launch date moves in one place. The QA cut lands somewhere else. The resource spreadsheet keeps telling a story that used to be true. Helium watches the systems that change first, so the capacity model never drifts more than a few minutes behind reality.
Portfolio roadmap
Aha! · Roadmap
DVT readiness pulled forward 11 days
Resource tracker
Smartsheet
Firmware lead still listed at 80%, last edited 6 days ago
Cross program scan
Jira · Workday
Validation lead committed to Aurora through Nov 12
Vendor commitments
Coupa
External lab slot available at +$30K premium
Risk register
ServiceNow
DVT readiness still marked Green
Hardware inventory
PLM
DVT unit pool short by 4 after field trial pull
Drift detected · capacity model refreshing
Capacity is not just headcount. It is the full constraint stack.
Across complex operations, delivery commitments depend on people, scarce skills, budget approvals, vendor availability, shared systems, facility windows, data readiness, equipment, and leadership decisions. Helium models the full constraint stack, not just assignments in a resource tracker.
A delivery commitment asks one thing.
Can the team meet the commitment with the capacity, evidence, and approvals available today? With the current capacity manifest, the program cannot prove that on the committed date.
2 engineers, dedicated through DVT
1.6 FTE, lead at 140% across three programs
0.4 FTE short
Resource tracker · Workday · Jira capacity
1 named owner, fixture plan signed off
Unassigned · fixture plan in draft
1 owner short
Program plan · MES routing doc
1 lead through Nov 14
Committed to another launch through Nov 12
72 hrs short
PMO calendar · Helium cross program scan
12 units
8 units after field trial allocation
4 units short
Lab inventory · Shipment ledger
Access by Nov 10
Booked Nov 14
4 days short
Lab booking system
Standard SOW, no premium
Premium slot available at +$30K
Optional
Vendor portal · Procurement
Diagnosis: The gate cannot be proven on Nov 14 because firmware, MFG test, units, and lab capacity are out of line.
The review packet is the product moment.
Helium does not pick the answer. It builds the four moves a leader actually has: protect the date, preserve scope, add capacity, or reduce risk. Each option includes quantified impact, named approvers, and source evidence. The recommendation is explicit. The decision stays governed.
Recommended
Add capacity to protect DVT readiness without changing the launch date.
VP Engineering + Finance · 48-hour SLA
Protect launch date
Move two lower priority firmware features out by two sprints; assign manufacturing test owner this week.
Risk drops to Medium · scope reduced
Preserve full scope
Keep all planned beta features, but move DVT readiness three weeks to match real validation capacity.
Quality risk drops · market date exposed
Add capacity
Bring in vendor QA support, rent external lab time, reallocate one firmware engineer from Program B, and pull 4 DVT units from the field trial pool.
Recommended path · DVT readiness held intact
Reduce risk
Cut two non critical beta features and preserve validation coverage on the hardware and manufacturing gates.
Scope reduced · reliability evidence protected
The edge is the loop after approval.
Most tools stop at the recommendation. Helium carries the approved decision back into the systems, owner notifications, risk register, and stakeholder narrative that make the new commitment real, then monitors whether the rebalancing happens.
High → Med
DVT readiness
Unchanged
Launch date
+$42K
Incremental
Updated with approved external lab slot, vendor QA support, and firmware reassignment
Firmware engineer reallocated from Program B; manufacturing test owner assigned
External lab SOW raised at $30K · vendor QA premium approved
4 DVT units pulled from field trial pool, retagged to launch program
DVT readiness moved from High to Medium with evidence links
Executive memo drafted for VP Engineering, Finance, PMO; SteerCo pre read attached
Helium continues to monitor the new commitment
Helium prepares the resource decision. Leaders make it.
Resource decisions involve managers, finance, HR, labor constraints, team morale, and program politics. The product is not autonomous allocation, utilization optimization, or AI-driven assignment. It is a faster, better-evidenced path to the call leaders are already responsible for making.
Source evidence
Every assumption traces back to the system, document, message, or owner update it came from.
Freshness on every input
Stale assumptions are visible, so program managers see exactly which parts of the model still hold.
Confidence, not opinion
Helium shows confidence and gaps instead of pretending messy capacity data is perfectly objective.
Governed execution
Approved changes update systems with traceability, owner notifications, and follow-through monitoring.
See your next program honestly resourced.
We will run a 20 minute feasibility scan on a portfolio program of your choice with the same capacity manifest, diagnosis, and review packet your team would see in production.