Capacity Planning

Without a plan, a small team finds its ceiling by hitting it. It oversells, delivers late, then undersells for a while to recover. Even a rough model shows an overcommitment before it is promised. It also answers when to hire a contractor or automate a step: when demand reliably exceeds the capacity already in place, not when a single busy month feels hard.

• Work out how much effort one typical unit of work really takes, from past jobs rather than hopes.
• Count available capacity honestly, after meetings, admin and the owner's own sales time.
• Check every new commitment against what is left before answering.
• Leave a buffer. A plan filled to 100 per cent breaks on the first sick day.
• Compare planned hours with actual hours for a few cycles. First estimates are usually optimistic.
• Plan by skill as well as by headcount, since one scarce skill often sets the limit for everyone.

Capacity planning compares two numbers: the productive hours available and the hours the work needs. Productive hours are usually well below contracted hours, because meetings, admin, sales and leave take their share. Demand is the effort a typical unit of work consumes, whether that is a project, a client or a ticket.

Say a two-person design studio has 28 productive hours a week each, so 56 in total. A typical brand project takes 12 hours a week for six weeks. Four projects at once use 48 hours, which fits. A fifth would need 60 hours and quietly break the plan.

• Planning from contracted hours instead of productive hours.
• Forgetting the founder's own non-delivery work.
• Never updating the model when the mix of work changes.