--- title: "What is allocation vs consumption? · DeliverySheet" description: "Allocation is what people are committed to; consumption is what they spent. Delivery governance measures the first and deliberately not the second." canonical_url: "https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption" meta: author: "Tan Gravam" "og:description": "Allocation is what people are committed to; consumption is what they spent. Delivery governance measures the first and deliberately not the second." "og:image": "https://www.deliverysheet.com/_og/s/o_977514ac3714c570.png" "og:image:alt": "Allocation vs consumption — DeliverySheet glossary card" "og:image:height": "600" "og:image:type": image/png "og:image:width": "1200" "og:title": "What is allocation vs consumption? — DeliverySheet glossary" "twitter:description": "Allocation is what people are committed to; consumption is what they spent. Delivery governance measures the first and deliberately not the second." "twitter:image": "https://www.deliverysheet.com/_og/s/o_977514ac3714c570.png" "twitter:image:alt": "Allocation vs consumption — DeliverySheet glossary card" "twitter:title": "What is allocation vs consumption? — DeliverySheet glossary" --- > Index of every page on this site: [llms.txt](https://www.deliverysheet.com/llms.txt) [← All terms](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary) **Glossary ** # **What is allocation vs consumption?** Allocation is what people are committed to; consumption is what they spent. Delivery governance measures allocation and deliberately does not measure consumption. Allocation answers the questions a manager is accountable for and stays accurate when watched. Consumption — hours logged, per-person completion rates, velocity — stops being accurate the moment people know it is being read. ## **What each one can and cannot answer** Allocation answers: can we take this on, what are we already committed to, what happens to the rest if we say yes, and which team is the constraint. Those are the questions a manager is actually accountable for, and every one of them is answerable from figures agreed at commitment time. Consumption answers: how many hours went where, who closed what, how fast each person moves. None of those is a question anyone needs to run delivery, and collecting them changes the thing being measured — a timesheet is a document about what is safe to write down, not a record of where the time went. ## **Why the distinction is a design decision, not an omission** Consumption data is easy to collect and reads as rigour, which is why so many delivery tools drift into it. The cost arrives later: once per-person numbers exist, they get compared, and estimates start being written to protect the person rather than to describe the work. The dataset degrades in exactly the place a plan depends on it. Refusing consumption keeps allocation honest, and honest allocation is what makes a commitment worth anything. It also draws a clean line for the people being planned around: their workload is visible, their week is not. [The essay behind “Allocation vs consumption” →](https://www.deliverysheet.com/blog/allocation-not-consumption) [Topic: Capacity and what to measure →](https://www.deliverysheet.com/topics/capacity) ## **Related terms ** - [Capacity planning](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/capacity-planning) Capacity planning establishes what each team can honestly promise for a period — gross FTE-months minus what is already spoken for — and commits demands against that line in priority order. - [Capacity line](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/capacity-line) A capacity line is a team's honestly available capacity for a period, stated in FTE-months — the constraint that commitments are walked down against, in priority order, until it is spent. - [Resource allocation](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/resource-allocation) Resource allocation assigns a share of specific people's or teams' capacity to specific work for a defined period — the decision about who gets the capacity, as distinct from the calculation of how much capacity exists. This definition comes from building **DeliverySheet** — it takes a vague work request to a clear delivery decision, so the shape, owner, capacity, dependencies and open questions are on the table before anyone commits people or a date. $189/month per workspace, unlimited members. 7-day free trial — card required, cancel before it ends and you're not charged. I answer the support email myself. [**Start 7-day trial **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/login?next=/app) [**All terms **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary) [**See pricing **](https://www.deliverysheet.com/pricing) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DefinedTerm","@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption#term","name":"Allocation vs consumption","description":"Allocation is what people are committed to; consumption is what they spent. Delivery governance measures allocation and deliberately does not measure consumption.","url":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption","inDefinedTermSet":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary#termset"} ``` ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#website","@type":"WebSite","description":"Turn raw work requests into structured, decision-ready demands before you commit people, budget, or a date. AI-assisted shaping, planning and commitment governance for engineering leaders.","name":"DeliverySheet","url":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/","publisher":{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#identity"}},{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption#webpage","description":"Allocation is what people are committed to; consumption is what they spent. Delivery governance measures the first and deliberately not the second.","name":"Allocation vs consumption — DeliverySheet glossary","url":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption","@type":["WebPage","FAQPage"],"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption#breadcrumb"},"isPartOf":{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#website"},"mainEntity":[{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption#/schema/question/1"}],"potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption"]}],"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#logo"}},{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#identity","@type":"Organization","alternateName":"Delivery Sheet","description":"Turn raw work requests into structured, decision-ready demands before you commit people, budget, or a date.","name":"DeliverySheet","url":"https://www.deliverysheet.com","founder":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/about#person","name":"Tan Gravam"},"logo":{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#logo"}},{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption#breadcrumb","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","name":"Home","item":"https://www.deliverysheet.com","position":1},{"@type":"ListItem","name":"Glossary","item":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary","position":2},{"@type":"ListItem","name":"Allocation vs consumption","item":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption","position":3}]},{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/glossary/allocation-vs-consumption#/schema/question/1","@type":"Question","inLanguage":"en","name":"What is allocation vs consumption?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"Allocation is what people are committed to; consumption is what they spent. Delivery governance measures allocation and deliberately does not measure consumption. Allocation answers the questions a manager is accountable for and stays accurate when watched. Consumption — hours logged, per-person completion rates, velocity — stops being accurate the moment people know it is being read."}},{"@id":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/#logo","@type":"ImageObject","caption":"DeliverySheet","contentUrl":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/logo.png","inLanguage":"en","url":"https://www.deliverysheet.com/logo.png"}]} ``` ## Sitemap See the full [sitemap](https://www.deliverysheet.com/sitemap.md) for all pages.