--- # /blocks/capacity/ - stamped from block-map-canon-v0.5 (entry 7) and the # block-page template. Confidentiality: shape yes, implementation no; moments # are illustrative composites; no client names, thresholds or gated figures. # People-signal sensitivity: governance points inward, human-gated (canon open # item) - reflected in "You set the dial". title: 'The capacity block' slug: 'capacity' object: 'Each person and role - load, capability, certification, dependency and attrition risk.' pain: "Everything routes through the same three people, and I'll learn one of them is leaving when it's too late." description: 'Every person and role run as one loop - key-person risk and competence lapse seen months early, governed inward with a human gate.' metaTitle: 'The capacity block: key-person risk seen early' related: - 'delivery' - 'resilience' order: 8 noindex: false # launched 2026-07-24 --- # The capacity block **Every person and role, run as one loop** - key-person risk and competence lapse seen months early, governed inward. --- ## The pain *"Everything routes through the same three people, and I'll learn one of them is leaving when it's too late."* The firm's real capacity lives in a few heads, and no system holds the shape of it. Utilisation runs hot in one place, a certification quietly approaches expiry in another, the critical work concentrates on one person across several clients - each fact sitting in HR, or the practice system, or nobody's system at all. The concentration is obvious in hindsight and invisible in advance, so the key-person risk is learned from a resignation letter and the competence gap from a failed file review. In wealth and insurance this is the training and certification regime; in legal, fee-earner utilisation; everywhere, key-person cover. ## What the block is The object is each person and role - one continuous picture per person, of load, capability, certification, dependency and attrition risk. Everything relevant feeds one live record: utilisation and load, certifications and CPD, where work concentrates, fit-and-proper events, joiners and leavers. A model reads it permanently. Your HR, practice-management and resourcing systems stay exactly where they are - the block reads from them, it does not replace them. ## The loop in action [MOMENT: styled quote panel] The critical work on three clients has quietly concentrated on one person, and their utilisation has run above a healthy line for two quarters ⇄ the delivery loop. Neither fact alone raises an alarm; together they are a key-person risk forming. The block raises it months before any resignation: *"this dependency is concentrating; here is the exposure, and here is a succession and backup plan."* The flag arrives while there is still time to act on it. - *the dial: recommend* [MOMENT: styled quote panel] The catch. A fit-and-proper event is logged against a person in a regulated role. The block routes the assessment and keeps the evidence current - but anything that touches the individual is held behind a human gate, with HR and legal in the loop and the person's own transparency respected. *"An assessment is prepared; nothing about the person moves without your sign-off."* The loop points inward carefully, by design. - *the dial: recommend, human-gated* [MOMENT: styled quote panel] A certification is approaching expiry. The block assigns the training and updates the evidence before the lapse - the competence gap closed quietly, the record kept current, the regulator's question answered before it is asked. - *the dial: recommend* Each output states what it saw, why it matters, what it recommends, and how confident it is - every fact linked back to its source, in an order a people lead can read and a regulator can examine. ## You set the dial Every capability has four positions: **observe** - it reads silently and measures its own accuracy; **recommend** - it surfaces the case and a proposed action to a named owner; **draft** - it prepares the action for a human signature; **act** - it executes within agreed bounds and logs everything. Everything starts at observe. Promotion is earned on the measured record and reversed instantly if it doesn't hold. Because this loop reads people, it points inward with explicit HR and legal governance: individual-level actions stay behind a human gate, and staff transparency is a setting, not an afterthought. The mechanics are the immune gate described in [our framework](/ai-native-company/). ## How it lands It starts narrow: one team or one regulated role, the block at observe against your own past outcomes. Nothing is replaced, nothing is migrated - the first signals flow from the systems you already run. From there it is a bounded engagement - blueprint, build, handover - and your team owns the result outright: the signal map, the judgement rules, the dial settings, the working loop. ## The backtest Take three past people events: a key departure you learned about too late, a certification that lapsed before anyone noticed, and a bottleneck you only saw once it was under load. What did your own record know, and when? That is the first question the diagnostic answers. Take [the ten-minute diagnostic](https://benchmark.somai.studio), or write to [hello@somai.studio](mailto:hello@somai.studio?subject=The%20capacity%20block). --- Runs on [our framework](/ai-native-company/) · related reading: [Most AI spend never reaches the P&L](/thinking/most-ai-spend-never-reaches-the-pnl/)