2 min lesson
The capacity ledger
Give the practical answer to "What does the TPM own in the allocation forum and what do they not own?" Then name the detail that supports it.
Step 1 of 2
The capacity ledgerdecisions you can audit and revisit
Allocation drifts when grants are made and never revisited. A living capacity ledger records who got what, on what evidence and whether the bet paid off. It makes the forum self-correcting: a team that consistently under-uses its grant loses the argument next cycle on data, not politics. It also gives you the honest input for COGS attribution, because you can connect spend back to the team and product that asked for it.
- Who
- TPM (you)
- Owns what
- The framework, the forum cadence, the data and ledger, the explicit tradeoffs
- Who
- ML / Infra leadership
- Owns what
- The final allocation call and accountability for the outcome
- Who
- Requesting teams
- Owns what
- The evidence behind their ask and the utilization they promised
| Who | Owns what |
|---|---|
| TPM (you) | The framework, the forum cadence, the data and ledger, the explicit tradeoffs |
| ML / Infra leadership | The final allocation call and accountability for the outcome |
| Requesting teams | The evidence behind their ask and the utilization they promised |
You own the machinery of the decision, not the decision itself - that distinction is the role.
I would not try to own the allocation call - that belongs to the ML and Infra leads who are accountable for the outcome. I own the framework and the forum: a recurring review where every request shows current utilization, projected demand and expected value, where the opportunity cost of funding one team over another is on the table explicitly and where a living ledger lets us revisit grants on real usage. My job is to make the decision easy to get right.
Do not present the allocation forum as you deciding who wins. In a flat, founder-engaged, talent-dense org that reads as overreach and will sink you in the values round. The credible posture is that you make the tradeoffs legible and hold leaders to their commitments - you are the thought partner and the scorekeeper, not the referee handing out GPUs.