This article explains how to calculate realistic team capacity by accounting for productive hours, planned absences, team composition, unplanned work, dependencies, and other factors that can reduce the amount of work a team can actually complete.
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Read the full article at:
https://www.jirastrategy.com/calculating-team-capacity/
Article Summary
Team capacity is the amount of work a team can realistically complete during a sprint or time period. But simply multiplying the number of team members by their available work hours can lead to overcommitment. Not all working hours are productive project time! A more realistic capacity calculation accounts for several factors like:
- Productive hours: Identify hours team members can realistically spend on project work, rather than assuming an entire eight-hour workday is available.
- Planned absences and commitments: Subtract vacation, holidays, training, production support, and other known commitments.
- Team composition: Consider differences in experience and the time required for new team members to become productive.
- Unplanned work: Leave room for unexpected sick days, outages, emergencies, and other interruptions.
- Dependencies and process overhead: Waiting for other teams, unstable environments, external dependencies, approvals, and shifting priorities can all reduce actual capacity.
Effective capacity planning also needs to be paired with accurate estimation. The goal is to establish a realistic amount of work the team can complete without routinely overcommitting.
Read the Article
See sample calculations, a list of common capacity killers, and read the full article at:
https://www.jirastrategy.com/calculating-team-capacity/
