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I love the “mind RAM” phrase, lol.

I was thinking of time and bandwidth as nearly synonymous, with mildly different connotations, but I think your definition of bandwidth is perfect and helps me realize what I subconsciously thought about it but hadn’t defined.

My industry/product are different enough from what you described to not have the same examples, but I realized when I talk about bandwidth (or more often, “capacity”), it’s most often when asking my direct reports if they’re able to take on new work. I realize that like you said, that means if they can work it to completion in whatever timeframe is allotted given their other priorities, and so stakeholders—myself included—see the progress. Given we’re on the Product side, the timescale could be anywhere from hours to a year depending on the topic/project. And typically I want to know because if they don’t think they have the capacity, then we can discuss priorities and what should drop, I can take the work on myself, or I can go back to my own stakeholders and set realistic expectations.

Thanks for taking the time to help me think about this!