Capacity planning for a team rather than individual resources

[Greg Cook]

Im looking for some help / a plugin..

I currently have multiple development teams.  Each team is made up of 3 - 5 Resources.

Each Team can we working across multiple projects at a time.  

I want to be able to resource at a project / Team level.  

what i want to do.

1) per member of the team i can allocate their hours per day ( availability or leave etc )

2) have a combined sum of all the people in the team per day/week/sprint ( configurable view )

3) Create the concept of a Project which has a time span of say 12 weeks.. ( i might have multiple projects defined and they can over lap each other )

4) have the tool determine where i will have resource clashed between projects. eg i might allocate that the team should work on project 100 for the first 3 weeks, then 50% for the next 3 , then 25% etc..  i want to be able to do this for each project.

As i allocate projects to a team it should ideally highlight when i have over resourced and allow me to juggle the project allocation.

I see so many tools that a focused on the story/person level, but i really dont care about the individuals i care about the team as a whole ( promoting team collaboration and swarming ) ..  How each person is allocated to work in the team is irrelevant to me ( in general ) as they all have similar skills .  I do want to know when im overloading a team with too many in parallel projects, so that i can shift durations or timelines.  If the tool could work out the best project distribution to meet the time frames based on project size ( hours ) and team Capacity ( hours ) that would be a bonus.

Any tools in jira or not that meet this need?

[Daria Spizheva_Reliex_]

Hi Greg,

ActivityTimeline is a handy Jira add-on that can help you manage your teams and projects more smoothly. It also offers features like workload indicators and forecasting reports to optimize resource utilization.

Here's how it can tackle your specific needs:

1. Setting Individual Hours. You can easily assign daily hours for each team member, including their availability and time off. This ensures everyone’s schedule is clear and accounted for.

2. Team Workload Overview. The tool offers customizable views to see the total workload for your team over different periods—be it daily, weekly, or per sprint. This helps in keeping track of who’s doing what and when.

3. Project Timeframes. You can define projects with specific durations and manage multiple projects that might overlap. This keeps all your project timelines organized.

4. Spotting Resource Conflicts. ActivityTimeline highlights when team members are overbooked or when projects clash. It allows you to adjust assignments and timelines to balance the workload effectively.

If you still not sure whether this app solves your specific needs, you can have a quick call with client success managers and clarify them. Also, here's more on how can you configure teams in AT. Hope this helps!

[Greg Cook]

thanks 

Unfortunately these types of approaches are Resource focused.  and Jira ticket specific.

Imagine an excel sheet that has a table with list of projects with start and end dates and allocated hours ..

you could plot this information in a Gantt style chart.  

If you then had a table for a team that showed possible hours available for that team for a sprint.  

if the tool was smart it would try and distribute the work across the date range for that project so that ideally you didnt have any sprints where the team was overbooked. 

This type of view requires no resource level information.. it doesn't need any stories or tasks or epics .. Maybe you could have a top level Project to define start and end dates for that project.  

The model you have requires tasks to be allocated to people.  and then in theory you can see the resource utilization of individual FTE's in the team and if a single team member has been overbooked.  But this way of thinking is creating mini silos in the team. ( sub consciously ) as you are have to think about who works on what and when.  i want the whole team working on a project(s), doesn't matter which story or bug or issue..

so its really a very different view to most of the plugins i have seen.. 

[Rahul_RVS]

Hi @Greg Cook 

If would like to try a mktplace app for resource capacity planning, take a look at

Capacity Planner 

The app offers:

1. Resource Tracking and Allocation : The app allows you to monitor and track various resources by adding them as part of a template, and their work allocation across multiple projects / sprints.

2. Real-time Visualization: Provides intuitive charts, graphs to visualize resource utilization and capacity levels in real-time.

3. Full Sprint / Project Fix version Capacity and Monitoring

[Pasam Venkateshwarrao]

Hi @Greg Cook 

Thanks for reaching out to the community,can you try this in EazyBi by refering the below document

https://docs.eazybi.com/eazybi/learn-more/learn-eazybi-through-sample-reports/samples-time-tracking

Thanks

Pasam

[Greg Cook]

Thanks, we use easy bi for other things, but the reports you point to are after the work has been done, or if would has been pre assigned.  im wanting to forecast and plan , so actuals dont really matter for this.. ( at a point in time they might be a usefule input to see if work is on track or not. 

[Germán Morales _ Hiera]

Your clarification is important: you are not just looking for post-delivery reporting, you want to forecast project allocation before the work happens.

For that use case, I would separate two models:

1. Resource scheduling
Tools where you assign specific tasks to specific people on a calendar.

2. Project allocation / workload planning
Tools where you plan weekly capacity by person, team or project, then check where future weeks become overloaded.

Disclosure: I build Hiera, a Marketplace app for Jira planning, so I’m biased here.

Hiera may fit if your planning model is weekly hours by person/project, with team aggregate views and plan-vs-actual signals for past weeks. It is not a replacement for a full resource scheduling suite with leave management, but it is useful when the main question is: “how much time are we planning to spend on each project over the next weeks, and where are we overloaded?”

Marketplace link:
https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1914332338/hiera-strategic-planning-for-jira

If you need pure team-level allocation without assigning work to people at all, I would validate that carefully during the trial, because many Jira apps still calculate capacity from people, issues or assignees.

[Evie Z_]

@Germán Morales _ Hiera 

This topic is now closed as the discussion has become outdated. If you have more questions or want to continue the conversation, feel free to start a new topic. For more details on why we close older threads, check out our Rules of engagement - Atlassian Community .

Thank you for your understanding!

[John Funk]

Hi @Greg Cook - Maybe you could post a screenshot of what you are looking for. It could be hand drawn, done in PowerPoint, etc. That will give the responders a better idea of what your need is and if they can meet it. 

[Eduardo Anflor - MindPro]

Hi, @Greg Cook 

Looking at your scenario, I believe Mindpro Deliver may cover at least part of these needs. I work at Mindpro and we developed this app for scenarios where people need to plan work based on teams.

The app allows you to create teams and Delivery Plans (which you can consider projects or contracts, depending on your process). The delivery plans are planned in accounts, and teams to distribute the work. Thus, you define how much of the total work each team should perform.

It is useful if you have people working for more than one team simultaneously. When individuals log work, they inform the team that they are entering time for it. The system then consumes that amount from the respective plan.

Then, you can check the progress and team distribution in the reports:

Also, calculate the costs per plan/project or individual:

I hope that helps.

Regards,

Eduardo