# Zero Based Budget Planner

> Ranks spend decision packages by value per dollar via a bundled calculator and shows exactly which packages a stated budget actually funds, instead of an across-the-board percentage cut that protects low-value spend and starves high-value spend equally. Use whenever the user needs to justify spend from zero, is facing a budget cut and deciding what to protect, or has a cost-cutting exercise that's just "reduce every department by 10%" with no ranking behind it.

- Skill: `natan-mohart/zero-based-budget-planner` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add natan-mohart/zero-based-budget-planner`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/natan-mohart/zero-based-budget-planner/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Finance & Business
- Author: Natan-Mohart (https://skillmd.com/u/natan-mohart)
- Updated: 2026-09-21
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/natan-mohart/zero-based-budget-planner

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# Zero-Based Budget Planner

## When to use
Use whenever spend needs to be justified from a zero base rather than carried forward from last year, or when a budget cut is coming and the instinct is an across-the-board percentage reduction — a method that cuts high-value and low-value spend by the same amount, protecting waste exactly as much as it protects what actually matters.

## What it does
Scores every discretionary spend item as a decision package with a cost and a value score, computes value per dollar via a bundled calculator, ranks all packages by that ratio, and shows precisely which packages a stated total budget actually funds versus cuts — separating mandatory spend (compliance, core operations) that gets funded regardless of ranking from discretionary spend that competes on value.

## Method
1. **Separate mandatory from discretionary spend up front.** Mandatory means the business cannot legally or operationally function without it (compliance, core infrastructure, contractual obligations) — these get funded first and are excluded from the ranking competition, since ranking them against a marketing campaign would be a category error.
2. **Break discretionary spend into decision packages** — a specific initiative or program with a cost and a stated business value, not a department-level lump sum. A department budget line is too coarse to rank; the individual programs inside it are what actually compete for funding.
3. **Score each package's value** (1-10) based on its actual business impact — revenue contribution, risk reduction, strategic importance — with the reasoning stated, not just a number pulled from department politics.
4. **Run the bundled calculator** (`scripts/zbb_ranker.py`) to compute value per dollar for every discretionary package, rank them, and show exactly which packages fall inside the available budget and which get cut.
5. **Read the cut list as a set of explicit trade-offs**, not a byproduct. If a cut package is politically important despite ranking low on value per dollar, that's now a visible, named decision to override the ranking, rather than an invisible casualty of a blanket percentage cut.
6. **Check for packages that are individually low-value but collectively necessary** (a set of small tools that together support one critical workflow) — the value score should reflect the package's real function, not just its individual visibility.
7. **Publish the ranking, not just the final funded list.** Showing why each package was funded or cut is what makes a zero-based budget defensible when someone asks "why did we cut X but keep Y."

## Inputs
- Total budget available
- List of decision packages with cost, value score and rationale, and mandatory flag where applicable
- Config saved as JSON matching the format documented at the top of `scripts/zbb_ranker.py`

## Output format
Mandatory spend total and remaining discretionary budget; ranked table of discretionary packages by value per dollar with funded/cut status; explicit cut list with a note that political overrides of the ranking are visible trade-offs, not silent losses.

## Example
A $3M budget with $1.2M in mandatory core platform spend leaves $1.8M discretionary. Ranking four discretionary packages by value per dollar funds customer success tooling, market expansion, and a marketing campaign, while an office renovation ranks last and gets cut. If leadership still wants the renovation funded, that's now an explicit override of a stated ranking, not a spending decision made by default because nobody compared it against the alternatives.

## Common pitfalls
- Cutting every department by the same percentage instead of ranking individual spend items by actual value.
- Scoring value based on who's loudest in the budget meeting rather than a stated, defensible rationale.
- Treating mandatory and discretionary spend as if they compete on the same ranking, when they answer different questions.