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# The Value of Work Matrix Toolkit: Map Your Team's Actual Work Against Actual Hours
- URL: https://www.trentcotton.com/the-value-of-work-matrix-toolkit-map-your-teams-actual-work-against-actual-hours/
- Published: 2026-08-27T17:52:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-08-27T17:52:00.000Z
- Author: Trent Cotton
- Tags: #futhristresources, FutHRist, Resources To Check Out

I built the Value of Work Matrix to make that visible in one working session, using your team's actual work instead of a hypothetical case study. Two questions decide everything: does this work create real value, and does it genuinely require focused human judgment? Score both, and every task lands in one of four places: Automate and Scale, Protect, Why Are We Doing This, or the Danger Zone.

This toolkit gives you everything to run it yourself.

## **What's Included**

- **The Value of Work Matrix Workbook (Excel).** A Start Here tab with the framework, five Business Unit tabs that walk each department through listing their work, estimating hours per week, and scoring it, and a Dashboard that rolls everything up automatically. Every quadrant total is weighted by hours, not headcount of tasks, so the picture reflects where time actually goes. Includes a bubble chart mapping every item across departments by value, focus, and hours.
- **The Facilitator Workshop Kit (19-slide deck).** A 90-minute agenda, step-by-step exercise instructions, discussion prompts for the share-out, and a worked example, so you or anyone on your team can run this as a live session without me in the room.

## Most organizations don't have a bandwidth problem. They have a distribution problem.

This is the diagnostic tool to help you. 

## **Who This Is For**

CHROs, HRBPs, and senior people leaders who want an honest answer to where their team's time is going, not another engagement survey.

## **A Note Before You Use It**

This is a structured working tool, not a validated psychometric instrument. It only works if you're honest instead of diplomatic. If a leader's favorite report ends up in the Danger Zone, that's the tool working, not a mistake to fix.

## **Format**

Built for Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint, .xlsx and .pptx. If you open the workbook in Google Sheets, the layout and formulas hold up, but double-check the bubble chart on the Dashboard tab, chart types like this don't always convert cleanly between Excel and Sheets.

## **FAQ**

1. **Do I need more than 5 departments?** → Duplicate a Business Unit tab (right-click the tab, Move or Copy) and the Dashboard formulas extend automatically.
2. **Can I run the workshop without the deck?** → Yes. The workbook stands alone. The deck is for when you want to walk a room through it live.
3. **Is this the same as the FutHRist Self-Assessment?** → No. That's a free individual diagnostic. This is a team-level tool for mapping actual work against actual hours. The goal is to understand what is high value work and what drives enterprise value at the departmental level.

[Buy the Kit](https://cottontrent.gumroad.com/l/value-of-work-matrix-toolkit?ref=trentcotton.com)