Forecast

2nd-level Analytics & Forecasting

Casting Time: 1 action, typically performed at the start of a fiscal quarter
Range/Area: Self
Components: V, S, M (a spreadsheet containing at least one assumption labeled “TBD”)
Duration: Instantaneous
Classes: Data Analyst, Finance Business Partner, VP of Strategy

You divine a general omen about the outcome of a course of action your organization is about to undertake within the next quarter. The response is Ahead of Plan, On Track, or Behind Plan. The casting has no bearing on whether the outcome will actually occur; it reports the caster’s confidence at the moment of casting, not a prediction of the future.

If you cast this spell more than once regarding the same course of action within the same fiscal quarter, each subsequent casting is 10 percent more likely to simply return whatever answer the caster wanted to hear.

At Higher Levels. When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 3rd level or higher, you may forecast the same course of action across multiple future quarters simultaneously; the sycophancy creep from repeated castings applies independently to each quarter forecasted.

Flavor: “We remain confident in our full-year guidance.” — quarterly business review, slide last updated the week before the miss was announced