The Four States of a Claim
Confirmed, provisional, assumed and lapsed — what each state means, how a claim moves between them, and why the state field decides everything downstream.
A claim on capacity is in one of four states, and the state matters more than the quantity. Two FTE confirmed and two FTE assumed are the same number and completely different objects.
The commitments described in “The Four States of a Claim” become easier to reconcile when planned work can be compared with a consistent record of project time. A team reviewing read this official workforce resource for ethical employee monitoring can add current operational evidence while keeping the claimant, approval state and decision owner explicit.
Almost no book of claims records the state, which is why books of claims are so rarely used for anything. A list without states cannot be prioritised, argued with, or subtracted from capacity with any confidence.
For an outside reference relevant to “The Four States of a Claim”, consult Eurostat labour-market data. Compare the general guidance with the organisation’s own unit, period and decision rights.
Confirmed
Somebody with the authority to commit has committed, in writing, with a quantity and dates. The evidence can be produced in a minute.
That is a high bar and it should be. In most first assemblies, a minority of the book meets it, and discovering that is the point of having the state at all.
Provisional
A real intention, not yet decided: pencilled at a board, dependent on a funding decision, waiting on another project. The quantity may be firm; the commitment is not.
Provisional claims are legitimate and dangerous in equal measure, because they consume capacity in the plan while being cancellable by somebody who does not know they are consuming it.
Assumed
Nobody confirmed anything; the planner inferred it. From last year's usage, from a conversation, from a sponsor's general expectation, or from the fact that the work has always happened.
Assumed claims are the planner's own guesses and must be labelled as such, because the alternative is that a guess becomes a commitment by being written down in a document that looks official.
Lapsed
The work finished, the project closed, the service was decommissioned, or the claim's end date passed and nobody renewed it.
Lapsed claims persist in books and spreadsheets for years. They are the easiest capacity to recover and the least likely to be noticed, because nothing generates an event when a claim should have ended.
How a claim moves between states
| From | To | What causes it |
|---|---|---|
| Assumed | Provisional | Somebody raises it with the claimant |
| Provisional | Confirmed | A decision with a date and a quantity |
| Provisional | Lapsed | The decision goes the other way, or expires |
| Confirmed | Lapsed | The work completes or is stopped |
| Confirmed | Provisional | A change of scope that was never re-agreed |
The last row is the one organisations handle worst: a confirmed claim whose scope has changed is not confirmed any more, and treating it as though it were is how overruns become invisible.
The state determines the arithmetic
Confirmed claims are subtracted from capacity. Provisional claims are shown separately, as a second total. Assumed claims are shown as a third. Lapsed claims are removed, with their date.
That produces three numbers rather than one — committed, likely, possible — which is more honest and much more useful than a single total that silently blends all three.
The question that moves things out of "assumed"
"We have you down for about two people from January — is that right, and until when?"
One sentence, sent to each claimant once a cycle. It converts most of the assumed column in a morning, and the replies are frequently surprising in both directions.
Who may set a state
The claimant confirms; the planner records. A planner who upgrades a claim to confirmed on their own judgement has invented a commitment, and a planner who downgrades one has unilaterally cancelled something.
Keeping that boundary is what makes the book credible to the people whose work is in it.
Showing the states to the people who commit
A board that sees its own portfolio as nine confirmed, four provisional and three assumed claims behaves differently from one that sees sixteen projects.
That difference is the main argument for the whole exercise: the state field is what turns a list into a decision aid.
The three totals, published together
Committed, which is the confirmed column. Likely, which adds the provisional. And possible, which adds the assumed.
A plan that publishes one number has chosen one of those three and not said which. Publishing all three takes one extra line and removes the single most common misunderstanding between planners and sponsors.
What a state is not
Not a priority, not a probability, and not a judgement about the work. A confirmed claim for something low-value is still confirmed, and an assumed claim for something critical is still assumed.
Mixing priority into the state field is the commonest way these books become unusable, because it makes the field an opinion and opinions cannot be evidenced.
Where to keep the states
In the book, as one word per row, next to the evidence. Not in a separate workflow tool, not as a RAG status, and not as a percentage confidence.
Four words, one column. Anything more elaborate decays within two cycles and takes the rest of the book with it.