Where is the work going?
Understand demand, effort, and capacity before deciding what to cut.
RedQuadrant practice note
A budget identifies what an organisation spends. It rarely explains adequately what its people spend their time doing, why that work arrives, or which activities make a useful difference. Resource optimisation begins by bringing those accounts together.
Work with teams to identify recurring activities and the demand behind them. Use a manageable level of detail. The purpose is to understand the pattern of effort and the constraints on useful work, rather than create an elaborate timesheet for every movement.
Distinguish work which creates value, work which supports it, work required by a legitimate obligation, and work generated by avoidable failure or friction. These categories require judgement. Something which looks unnecessary from one position may protect someone elsewhere.
Test an opportunity against its wider consequences. Stopping a check could release time and increase risk. Moving a task to another team could reduce one budget while raising total effort. Bringing a decision closer to the service could reduce delay while requiring better access to advice.
Give each proposed change an owner, an evidence base, and a way to observe the result. Report released capacity separately from cashable savings. Time becomes a budget saving only when a concrete and sustainable financial change follows.