Less time stuck.
More room to build.
What could your team do with the time it loses? Explore how better tools, workflows, and enablement turn everyday friction into useful capacity.
Start with the people.
Developers, AI builders, operations teams—anyone doing the work.
Where does the time go?
Use distinct hours for each category. Count time actually lost, excluding waits that overlap with other productive work.
Scenario buttons change the recovery target for every category. All starting values are illustrative, not industry benchmarks.Good flow takes investment.
Include implementation, training, internal effort, and ongoing tools or support. Benefits ramp up over time.
How the model works
Inspired by the supplied pages of Frictionless: translate avoided friction into hours, fully loaded labor value, and equivalent team capacity. This is an independent scenario model, not a reproduction of the book’s calculator or a forecast.
- Weekly recovered hours = team size × sum of enabled category hours × category recovery % × realization %. Realization is the share that becomes useful work.
- Annual capacity value = recovered hours × working weeks × hourly cost. Equivalent people = recovered weekly hours ÷ weekly hours per person.
- Each month uses working weeks ÷ 12. During rollout, month m receives (m − 0.5) ÷ rollout months of steady benefits; later months receive 100%. Zero rollout means immediate full benefit.
- Net capacity case = capacity value + direct cash savings − upfront and recurring costs. Cash-only case excludes all labor capacity value.
- Payback is the first month cumulative modeled benefits cover cumulative costs. It is only checked within your selected horizon.
- No automatic compounding, revenue uplift, faster delivery, or headcount reduction is assumed. Measure real results before using this as a budget commitment.
in recovered capacity value—not automatic cash savings
Cumulative benefit after investment and ongoing costs.