---
title: Reverse-engineering your board target
description: Planning season is changing. What used to be a static spreadsheet ritual is becoming a continuous operating system for growth.
canonical: "https://vasco.app/blog/planning-playbook"
date: "2025-10-06T00:00:00.000Z"
author: Guillaume Jacquet
jobTitle: "CEO & co-founder"
readingTimeMinutes: 9
contentType: guide
intent: playbooks-methods
pillar: "Revenue planning, forecasting & economics"
audiences:
  - revops
  - cros
  - start-ups
  - scale-ups
  - fractional
  - founders
---

# Reverse-engineering your board target

_A practical playbook for planning season_

## Get the guide

And the annual planning grind is back. Built with the [Leanscale](https://leanscale.team/) experts, this guide shows how to turn a board net-ARR goal into a working plan that’s ambitious, realistic for your team’s capacity, and aligned with your CFO’s guardrails. Time to end spreadsheet misery!

![](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/ys8gstp8/production/c6e70e73011c0f480289dd92d0b652915e253b20-1920x1080.png?w=1600&fit=max&auto=format)

## The 5 key sections of the guide

- Unpacking the growth goal
- Top-down planning
- Bottom-up planning
- Budget and unit economics guardrails
- Scenario modelling and reporting to plan

> Boards rarely hand you the map. They set a macro growth expectation and expect leadership to reverse-engineer the path. That's why, together with Leanscale, we’re sharing a practical path to go from board target to working plan without vanishing into spreadsheet hell.