Project Context

You are a Business Analyst supporting Meta's Ads organization, specifically the team that publishes weekly and monthly performance reporting for leadership across Facebook and Instagram ads. The reporting package is used by the Director of Ads Measurement, Finance, and Sales leadership to track revenue pacing, advertiser adoption, and delivery health. Over the last quarter, ad-hoc reporting requests from Product, Sales, and leadership have increased by 40%, while the team is still expected to deliver recurring reports on time.

Your analytics pod has 4 people: you, 2 data analysts, and 1 analytics engineer. You have 8 weeks to stabilize the reporting process before QBR season begins. Missing recurring deadlines creates executive escalations, but rejecting too many ad-hoc requests frustrates stakeholders who need fast answers for launch decisions and advertiser escalations.

Key Stakeholders

The Director of Ads Measurement wants recurring reporting delivered with zero misses. The Sales Strategy lead wants same-day turnaround on urgent advertiser questions. The Product Manager for Meta Advantage+ wants custom deep dives to support a planned feature launch. The analytics engineer is focused on reducing manual work and pushing for automation before taking on more one-off requests.

Constraints

• 8-week timeline before QBR preparation starts
• No additional headcount approved
• Current team capacity: 160 analyst hours per week
• Recurring reporting already consumes 110 hours per week
• Budget: $25,000 for automation or dashboard improvements
• 3 critical recurring deliverables: Monday weekly business review, month-end revenue pack, and biweekly launch health dashboard in Meta's internal reporting stack

Complications

1. A VP has started bypassing intake and sending ad-hoc requests directly to analysts in Workplace chats.
2. Two recurring reports depend on upstream data that arrives late 20% of the time.
3. The Product team has committed to a Meta Advantage+ launch readout in 5 weeks, but the metric definitions are still changing.

Your Task

1. Design an execution plan to manage ad-hoc requests without missing recurring deadlines.
2. Define a prioritization and intake process, including escalation rules.
3. Recommend what to automate, defer, or stop doing.
4. Set stakeholder communication cadences and expectation-setting mechanisms.
5. Define success metrics and risks for the 8-week stabilization plan.