Short Term Forecasting

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Weekly and daily forecasts are typically done 3-6 weeks in advance. The objective of these short-term forecasts is to determine where you schedule your staff in the following weeks. One question often asked is: Do short-term weekly and daily forecasts have to exactly match the monthly forecasts from long-term planning?

The answer is no. Your monthly forecasts are done farther in advance with less accurate information. As you get closer to the date, you should have updated business intelligence to help improve the accuracy of your forecast. Remember: Business intelligence, according to our definition, is all information about future events that might influence your forecast like e.g. a marketing campaign or a product release.

So if your short-term weekly and daily forecasts are simply a mathematical breakout of the monthly long-term forecast, you are missing some opportunities.

Let’s say you’re looking 3 months out. You have created a monthly forecast. You may also have created a weekly forecast for that same timeframe. This far out, it makes sense for them to match. But as you get closer, like 3-6 weeks, you should adjust your weekly forecast which was based on long-term data. You create a new short-term weekly forecast that helps you to fine-tune staffing.

As you have new information to change your weekly forecast, you should document that change and give the reasons why.