Corporate Processes
After this lesson, you will be able to:
- Explain what timesheets are actually for, and why accuracy is taken so seriously
- Tell the four main contract types apart, and predict how each one changes daily work
- Describe what the bench is, and what utilisation measures
- Read a status report's colour code, and understand what escalating a risk actually does
#Timesheets
Hours are booked against codes, one per project or work stream. If you are unsure which code something belongs to, ask rather than guess, because a wrong code sends the cost to the wrong place and someone has to unpick it later.
One thing to be entirely clear about: deliberately recording hours you did not work, or booking non-billable time as billable, is fraud rather than a shortcut. It ends careers. This is worth saying plainly because the pressure to look fully utilised is real and the correct response to it is to raise the underlying problem instead.
#How Projects Get Money
The contract type is invisible in your day-to-day work right up until it isn't. It decides how the team responds when scope moves.
Four contract types, and what each does to your week
If you understand nothing else here, understand that fixed-price projects guard scope because every extra request costs the vendor money.
| Feature | How it works | Who carries the risk | What you will notice |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time & Materials | Client pays for hours actually worked | Client | Timesheets are the invoice. Scope can flex, but only up to the approved budget. |
| Fixed price | One agreed price for an agreed scope | Vendor | Scope is guarded closely. Every addition becomes a formal change request with a cost attached. |
| Retainer / managed service | A monthly fee for a team or a service level | Shared | Service-level dashboards matter. Work is steady-state rather than project-shaped. |
| Milestone-based | Payment on delivery of agreed milestones | Vendor | Sign-offs become significant events, because money moves on them. |
On a fixed-price project, a client casually asks for 'one small extra field on the form' during a call. Why does the delivery manager react more carefully than you might expect?
#Staffing and the Bench
Being on the bench means you are employed and paid but not currently assigned to billable work. Some bench time is completely normal, and it is often when training and certifications happen. Extended bench time is uncomfortable, because the company is carrying a cost with no revenue against it, and the pressure to be assigned somewhere is real.
Product companies work differently. People stay with one team for long stretches, and there is no bench because there is no client to bill.
#Appraisals and Promotion
Most companies run a formal review annually or twice a year, producing a rating that feeds pay and promotion decisions.
The mechanics vary, but the pattern is consistent. You write a self-assessment. Your manager writes an assessment. Frequently there is feedback from peers. Then, in many larger companies, managers meet to compare ratings across teams so that one generous manager does not distort things, which is where a rating can move for reasons that have nothing to do with you.
The other thing worth knowing early is that how promotion works depends heavily on the kind of company, and the two systems reward different behaviour.
Where there is a published levelling ladder, common in product companies, promotion follows demonstrated behaviour rather than preceding it. People move once they are already operating at the next level, so the path is to take on that work first and have the title follow. Someone usually has to write it up and argue for it, which is why evidence matters.
Where there is a band structure and an annual cycle, common in large services firms, availability matters as much as performance. Promotion may need an open position at that grade on a project, and may be constrained by a rating distribution across the whole unit. Doing the work is necessary but not sufficient, and waiting quietly to be noticed is how people miss a cycle.
So ask early and ask specifically: what does the process look like here, who nominates, when does it run, and what evidence is expected.
#Status Reporting and RAG
Projects report their health in traffic-light colours, usually called RAG for red, amber, green.
The interesting part is entirely social. Nobody wants to be the first to report amber, because green looks better and there is always a hope that this week's slippage gets recovered next week. The result is a well-known pattern where a project stays green for months and then goes straight to red, which is the one transition that damages trust, because it means the report was not telling the truth for some time.
Reporting amber early is the mark of an experienced manager. It is a request for help while help can still change the outcome.
A project reports green every week for four months, then reports red. What does that pattern tell a senior stakeholder?
#Key Takeaways
- Timesheets are how work becomes money: client invoices in services firms, cost accounting in product firms. Submit them on time and book to the right code.
- Utilisation is billable over available hours. Healthy targets sit below 100% because non-billable work is legitimate.
- Contract type predicts behaviour. Fixed price guards scope because the vendor absorbs extras; time and materials is far more relaxed about change.
- The bench is normal between assignments in services companies, and is usually when training happens.
- Keep a running note of your own work through the year. Appraisal week is far too late to start remembering.
- Amber reported early is a request for help. Green straight to red destroys trust in the reporting itself.