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Case Study 04 · TMS Pre-Sales Plan · 2026

TMS Pre-Sales Plan: two hours of manual work to under fifteen minutes

A working walkthrough of an automated pre-sales project plan system. Sales fills an intake workbook, PMO reviews and generates a branded TMS implementation plan ready to send to prospects. Same template, every deal. Eighty-seven percent less PMO time per plan.

Owner · Lead PM, PMO Time-to-launch · ~4 weeks to v1 Time saved · 87.5% per plan Turnaround · Same business day

The five-stage path, at a glance

01
The Problem
Two-hour rebuilds
Every prospect, from scratch
02
The Insight
Plan as a system
Intake · Review · Output
03
The Build
5-step workflow
Sales → PMO → XLSX
04
The Outcome
Under 15 min
87.5% time reduction
05
The Compounding
Reusable template
Risk callouts inherited
01
The Problem · Two hours, every deal

Each TMS pre-sales plan rebuilt from scratch

Sales handed deals to Implementation without a project plan. Each prospect's plan took 1.5 to 2 hours of PMO time to assemble manually. Two-business-day minimum turnaround. Revisions added more days. Sales conversations stalled waiting for a credibility doc.

Before the system · the manual loop
Manual rebuild + revisions = stalled sales conversations

What it looked like before

  • Every deal restarted the work. Sales surfaced a prospect, PMO rebuilt a project plan from template fragments, copy-pasted bank tasks, applied branding manually.
  • Minimum two-business-day turnaround. No support for urgent requests.
  • Revisions cost 1 to 1.5 hours each, plus extra days. Sales lost momentum waiting for the deck.

Why it stayed manual

  • The plan was treated as a one-off document, not a system. Each PM made small adjustments and the template drifted.
  • No clear handoff: Sales didn't know what to send PMO; PMO didn't know what Sales had committed.
  • Branding and formatting were re-applied to every output. No formula-driven dates or RACI matrices reused across plans.
Lesson from Stage 1
A document built by hand every time isn't a template.
02
The Insight · Treat the plan as a system

Three components, not one document

The pre-sales plan is the output. The system that produces it is the value. Decompose into three components: a structured intake, a PMO review and configuration step, and a branded, formula-driven XLSX deliverable.

System architecture · 3 components
Component 01
Intake Workbook
Structured Excel intake form. Sales fills client info, modules, bank names, connection types, custom interfaces, forecasting track, start date. Single source of truth per plan request.
↓
Component 02
PMO Review & Plan Creation
PMO reviews the intake, selects sub-tasks per module from the Kantata master template, applies team assignments, hard-wires predecessor dependencies, generates the XLSX.
↓
Component 03
Client-Facing XLSX
Branded, Treasury-styled project plan. Formula-driven interactive dates, cover page, RACI matrix, bank summary. Ready to send.

The design principle

  • Decompose the doc. Treat intake, review, and output as separate stages with clean handoffs — not one monolithic document.
  • Lock the inputs. Sales fills a structured form, not a free-text email. PMO never guesses what was sold.
  • Generate, don't author. The XLSX is produced from the intake. Branding and formatting are automatic. PMO reviews and ships.

What this preserves

  • PMO judgment lives in Component 02 (review + configure). Not eliminated — concentrated where it matters.
  • Client-specific customizations stay possible. The output is a starting point, not a final fix.
  • Sales never edits the plan directly. Single source of truth stays clean.
Lesson from Stage 2
Lock the inputs, automate the output.
03
The Build · End-to-end workflow

Five steps, two owners, one source of truth

The system runs as a five-step workflow. Sales triggers, PMO executes. Each step has a defined owner and output. Jira anchors the trail so handoffs never go cold.

End-to-end workflow · per deal
1
Deal Identified
Sales uploads SOW to Jira: modules sold, bank names + connection types, interfaces, target start date.
Sales
2
Fill Intake Workbook
Client info, module checklist, bank details (Balance vs Payments flags, connection types), custom interfaces, forecasting track.
Sales / PMO
3
Review & Create
PMO reviews intake. Maps to the Kantata master plan. Generates the XLSX with the right modules, banks, and dependencies wired in.
PMO
4
Review & Deliver
PMO reviews the output, makes any client-specific tweaks, sends to Sales for delivery to the prospect.
PMO
5
Project Plan Delivered
XLSX uploaded back to the Jira ticket. Sales is notified. The plan is shipped to the prospect.
PMO

How the workflow stays tight

  • Jira is the trail. Every plan request starts and ends in the same ticket. No email threads, no spreadsheet hunting.
  • The intake form is the contract. If a field is blank, the request bounces back to Sales — not a half-built plan to PMO.
  • Same-day urgent path. Requests submitted before 12pm CDT can ship the same business day. No more "next week" defaults.

What's inside the generated plan

  • Cover page with deal specifics, Treasury branding, RACI matrix.
  • Eleven phases of TMS implementation. Bank connectivity gets its own 5-step sub-pattern (Pre-Enroll → Enroll → Setup → Test → Cutover).
  • Formula-driven start and end dates per phase. Interactive — edit the start date, the whole plan reflows.
Lesson from Stage 3
Every plan starts in the same place. No exceptions.
04
The Outcome · Time recovered, deals unblocked

Under fifteen minutes, branded, ready to ship

The first version of the system reduced plan generation time by 87.5%. PMO reclaims hours per deal. Sales gets a credibility doc in the conversation, not after it. Branding is automatic. Revisions are same-day.

Before / After · per plan
87.5%
Reduction in
plan generation time
>50%
Faster delivery
to Sales
~1h 45m
PMO time saved
per plan
Same day
Urgent request
turnaround
Time to generate 1.5–2 hrs manual → Under 15 min
Total turnaround 2+ business days → Within 1 day
Revision cycle 1–1.5 hrs + days → Same-day window
Branding Applied manually → Automatic
Urgent requests Not supported → Same-day <12pm CDT

What the time saved unlocks

  • Sales credibility. Prospects get a branded, detailed plan in the conversation — not as a follow-up after they've cooled.
  • PMO capacity. ~1h 45m back per deal compounds quickly across an active sales pipeline.
  • Revision velocity. Same-day revisions mean late-stage deal questions don't stall on a multi-day plan-update cycle.

What stayed manual on purpose

  • PMO still reviews every plan before it ships. The system is automation, not unsupervised generation.
  • Client-specific tweaks (priority shifts, special carve-outs) get applied in Step 4 by a PM. Custom work where custom work matters.
Lesson from Stage 4
Speed is the difference between credible and late.
05
The Compounding · Template absorbs the next deal

Every plan makes the next one easier

The system is the durable asset. Each prospect's plan inherits the eleven-phase TMS structure, the bank connectivity pattern, and any risk callouts surfaced in prior deals. New bank? Add it to the dropdown. New module? Extend the master template. The framework absorbs the change.

The template reused · deal after deal
The system is the asset · each deal sharpens it

What compounds, and why

  • The master template. Eleven phases, bank connectivity pattern, RACI matrix — all live as reusable building blocks.
  • Risk knowledge. Surprises from one deal become guardrails on the next. Risk callouts go in the template, not in tribal memory.
  • New banks and modules. Adding a new bank to the dropdown takes minutes. Every future deal that needs that bank inherits it automatically.

What this changes for the next deal

PMO no longer starts each plan from a blank canvas. The work is selecting modules, configuring bank rows, reviewing the output. Strategic input where strategic input matters; mechanical work disappears.

Cover page and System Architecture section of the Pre-Sales Plan vision document. Shows the three-component architecture (Intake Workbook, Project Plan Creation, Client-Facing XLSX), the five-step end-to-end workflow, and the What This Solves callout with metrics including 87.5% reduction in plan generation time and same-day urgent request turnaround.
The system documented · shared with leadership and Sales · click to view full
Lesson from Stage 5
The plan is the deliverable. The system is the asset.

What this case shows about how I work

A plan that's rebuilt by hand for every prospect isn't a template — it's a tax. The shift was decomposing the document into a system: lock the inputs, automate the output, keep PMO judgment concentrated on review. Each deal compounds into the next because the template absorbs what was learned.

Decompose, then automate

One document, three components. Intake locks inputs, generation locks formatting, review locks quality. Each piece can improve independently.

Speed is credibility

A pre-sales plan in the room beats a perfect plan two days later. Time-to-credibility is the metric Sales actually cares about.

Templates absorb risk

Surprises from one deal become guardrails on the next. The template gets better every time it's used.