DATUM Instrument

Before you start

Identify yourself so the program owner can merge your file with everyone else's. Nothing here leaves your browser until you export.

Your name

Your role / function

Firm

Program owner

How this works. Fill the module for whichever assignment is due. Your work saves automatically in this browser. When the assignment is due, press Export JSON at the bottom and send the file to your program owner. Do not email spreadsheets — the export keeps everyone's data in one shape.

Assignment schedule

Module	Assignment	Who fills it	Due
1	Friction Inventory	Every role	End of week 2
2	Baseline Capture	Named owner + whoever does the task	End of week 5
3	Disposition & Boundaries	Program owner + leadership	End of week 7
4	Margin Worksheet	Leadership only	End of week 9

Assignment 1 · due end of week 2

Friction Inventory

Every task you do repeatedly. Not projects — tasks. If you do it more than once a month and it has a beginning and an end, log it. Estimate the numbers; you are not measuring yet.

A task is something you do. "Reporting is a nightmare" is a complaint. "Assemble monthly funder progress report" is a task. Log tasks.

Ranked by annual cost

Calculated from what you entered. Rework is weighted because a task that has to be redone one time in four costs a quarter more than its clock time.

Assignment 2 · due end of week 5

Baseline Capture

Two weeks of real measurement on the top-ranked tasks. Log one entry every time the task is actually performed. Record all five segments — the whole point is that first-draft time is not the task.

Log it when you finish, not from memory at the end of the week. Reconstructed times are the reason most baselines are worthless.

Estimated against measured

Your Module 1 estimate compared with what you actually recorded. The gap is the finding.

Assignment 3 · due end of week 7

Disposition & Boundaries

One decision per task. Most tasks are not automation candidates and saying so is the correct answer. Automation is one of five options, not the default.

First-pass tool list

Any tool proposed above needs an owner, a permitted data class, and a retention position before anyone uses it on client material.

Assignment 4 · due end of week 9 · leadership only

Margin Worksheet

By service line. Enter what an engagement costs in hours today and what you project it will cost once the dispositions in Module 3 are applied. Price stays as it is today — the model shows what that does to revenue.

Revenue exposure

Hourly and retainer-with-hourly work loses revenue when effort falls. Flat-fee work gains margin. The mix is what matters.

Status

What is complete and what is outstanding in this file.

Hand in / merge

Participants export and send. The program owner imports each file with Merge to assemble the firm-wide register.

Merge adds rows this file does not already have, matched on record id, and keeps everything already here. Replace discards this browser's contents and adopts the imported file whole.

Changelog

Version	Date	Change
1.0.0	2026-09-14	Initial release. Four modules, shared schema, JSON export/import with merge.