Grafana Labs: Sales Capacity Planning with Pigment That Actually Scales
At a Glance
- Customer: Grafana Labs
- Industry: Observability and monitoring (SaaS)
- Platform: Pigment
- Primary use cases: Sales capacity planning, AE roster and headcount management, quota and target setting, territory-driven scenario planning, leadership scorecards and visibility
- Key business outcomes: A single source of truth for roster and targets, faster scenario planning when territories or hiring plans change, stronger headcount accuracy and auditability, and clearer executive visibility with less manual reconciliation
- Integrations: Workday-aligned roster and timing inputs (to reduce manual change tracking)
- Time to value: Foundation delivered quickly with a phased rollout approach and parallel validation to de-risk adoption
Success Summary
Grafana Labs outgrew spreadsheet-based sales capacity planning as headcount, territories, and targets became more dynamic and cross-functional. PlanSimpli implemented Pigment to centralize the AE roster, headcount, and quota foundations into a governed planning model designed for speed, scenario flexibility, and leadership-ready visibility. The result is a planning engine built to scale with Grafana’s growth, with fewer “version-of-the-truth” debates and more confident decision-making.
Grafana’s composable observability platform
Grafana Labs builds an open and composable observability platform that helps teams query, visualize, and alert on metrics, logs, and traces across many data sources. The organization supports both widely adopted open-source software and managed offerings such as Grafana Cloud, used by organizations that need reliable visibility into complex systems.
As Grafana Labs scaled, the team needed sales capacity and quota planning to keep pace. Their process had been built in Excel, which worked well early on but became increasingly difficult to maintain, reconcile, and adapt as territories, headcount, and targets evolved.
The Challenge
Before Pigment, Grafana’s sales capacity model and target setting lived in Excel. The team managed:
- Bottoms-up headcount planning
- NACV targets and new logo targets
- Attrition, promotions, and internal moves
- Change logs across multiple tabs and versions
As Grafana grew, the workflow became increasingly manual and error-prone, especially when teams referenced different versions of the truth.
Key friction points included:
- Territory changes: Often required extensive rebuilds or long chains of interdependent edits
- Headcount visibility: Roster change logs were hard to maintain, and open headcount could go unnoticed
- Leadership reporting: Getting to a clean, trusted view for executives required too much manual reconciliation
The Solution: Pigment, implemented by PlanSimpli
Grafana’s vision was to move from spreadsheet-based planning to a platform that could:
- Create a single source of truth for roster, headcount, and targets
- Enable faster, safer scenario planning across territory, quota, and hiring changes
- Provide leadership-ready views and scorecards with decision-grade visibility
- Reduce manual effort by structuring change tracking and supporting operational inputs
Grafana valued Pigment’s modeling approach, describing it as working with “cubes” and structured building blocks rather than sprawling spreadsheets, which helped the team think more clearly about architecture and governance.
Implementation approach: build the foundation, then accelerate
Phase 1: Establish the AE roster and quota foundation
The initial milestone was migrating the AE roster, headcount, and key quota drivers into Pigment as the foundation for the broader model.
Phase 2: Parallel validation to de-risk rollout
Grafana planned to run Pigment alongside the prior process for a short period to confirm parity, validate outputs, and close any gaps before fully switching over.
Phase 3: Expand to more teams and broader planning
With the AE “bones” in place, Grafana’s roadmap includes:
- Expanding Pigment usage into broader planning areas, including finance planning use cases
- Adding additional teams tied to accounts and territories
Results and impact: speed, trust, and planning that keeps up with Grafana
Grafana is early in the rollout and intentionally held off on locking in hard time-savings metrics. Still, the impact areas are clear.
1) Higher productivity with fewer spreadsheet battles
The biggest pain point was productivity: time spent wrangling complex spreadsheets, resolving confusion, and debating which version was correct. Pigment is expected to reduce that drag by centralizing planning and making changes easier to draft and propagate.
2) Faster scenario planning across territories, quotas, and headcount
Grafana expects Pigment to speed up scenario planning such as:
- Territory remaps
- Quota and target adjustments
- Headcount changes and hiring scenarios
- Comparing bottoms-up hiring plans against top-down goals
3) More reliable headcount visibility
By structuring roster changes and improving the way changes are tracked over time, Grafana expects:
- Fewer “mystery deltas” in headcount reporting
- Better awareness of open roles and staffing needs
- More confidence from finance and operations stakeholders
4) Leadership-ready views and confidence at a glance
Grafana called out the value of leadership views and scorecards that make it easier for executives to see accurate data quickly, without manual reconciliation.
“Pigment has been a really powerful tool for us. The cube-based modeling, instead of spreadsheets, helped us think more clearly about our planning architecture, and it’s flexible enough to move fast. We can pull the levers when we need to, while still switching between a structured ramp schedule and exception overrides, which matters a lot in a business with plenty of both. And the views are going to be a big win for leadership visibility.”
Martha Arciszewski, Sales Operations Manager, Grafana Labs
Advice from Grafana to other leaders implementing Pigment
Grafana’s guidance is simple and sharp: start flexible at the foundation. Build an adaptable architecture first, then make it more rigid as the organization’s needs mature. In other words, pour the concrete after you are sure where the doors go.
Stakeholder feedback
Early stakeholder feedback has been strongly positive, with a clear sense of momentum around the shift to Pigment. Operations leadership has been especially enthusiastic about establishing a reliable roster foundation in the platform, and the sales planning owner who previously ran the process in Excel has been energized by the transition to a more scalable approach. Finance stakeholders have also leaned in, emphasizing how critical always-on headcount accuracy is for planning and reporting, and viewing the move to Pigment as a meaningful step toward fewer surprises and more confidence in the numbers.
What’s next
With the core foundation in place, Grafana is already looking ahead to deepen value and expand impact. The team is excited to explore Pigment’s AI capabilities as a practical accelerator, especially as planning extends across more teams and interdependencies.
Key next steps include:
- AI-assisted model building to speed up formula creation and logic development, making it easier to iterate quickly as the organization scales and planning needs evolve.
- Predictive forecasting to strengthen visibility into NACV and other critical metrics, helping leadership plan with even greater confidence.
Why Grafana chose PlanSimpli
Grafana partnered with PlanSimpli for implementation because the engagement went beyond delivery. PlanSimpli prioritized enablement so Grafana could confidently own and expand the platform.
Grafana highlighted two key differentiators:
- Enablement-first approach: PlanSimpli focused on knowledge transfer, not just building and handing over a solution.
- Optionality and pragmatic design: PlanSimpli offered multiple implementation options with best-practice guidance, helping Grafana balance flexibility with structure (including thoughtful use of overrides rather than over-engineering early).
“PlanSimpli didn’t just implement Pigment, they built it with us. They gave us clear options, pressure-tested our assumptions, and made sure we understood the why behind every decision so we can confidently own and extend the model going forward.”
Martha Arciszewski, Sales Operations Manager, Grafana Labs
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