Capacity planning

Capacity planning compares the work assigned to each person against the time they have available. If a team member is given forty hours of work in a week with thirty hours of capacity, the tool shows them as overloaded. Jira and Linear are examples of tools that support planning against estimates. The aim is to spot problems before a sprint or quarter begins, not after it.

Overloaded teams miss dates and quality suffers, while underused people are a quiet waste of money. Without a view of capacity, plans are built on hope and the first sign of trouble is a delay. It matters for engineering, product and delivery teams who commit to dates. If your team is small and everyone knows what the others are working on, a regular conversation may do the same job.

• Ask how capacity is defined, such as hours per person, points per sprint or a mix.
• Check whether holidays and part-time schedules are taken into account.
• Test whether estimates entered on tasks feed into the capacity view automatically.
• Ask whether this view is part of the plan you would buy.