Increase team velocity/capacity temporarily

[Russell Stringer]

One of the teams I am working with has a stable velocity, but will be having a specialist join the team for a few Sprints to address some specific (related) work.

The team want to show increased capacity/velocity in Portfolio to reflect the work they are doing, but they also need to velocity to drop back down after the specialist leaves the team to ensure they don't take on too much work for later releases.

In short:

• Specialist's Stores need to be estimated (in points)
• Team capacity needs to increase while the specialist is with the team
• Team capacity needs to drop back to former level when the specialist leaves

What is the best way to achieve this in Portfolio?

[Kevin Hamm · Accepted solution]

Create a new team in portfolio with the team members that will be added during the time frame and associate them with the board they will be working on. Specify the number of story points the team is estimated to work during that time on the velocity when adding the team in your portfolio plan. On the far right of the team section there are 3 dots that appear when you hover. In this section you can specify the Sprints that the team will be working on. Portfolio will add these folks during those sprints only. Keep in mind, you have to have the sprints created on the boards for this to work (you dont have to have them filled with issues.

[Russell Stringer]

Thanks very much Kevin!

When I read you answer I first thought it sounded a bit like a hack, but having tried it I've found it's a really clean solution.

[Russell Stringer]

Minor problem: The Capacity Report now shows the temporary team as over capacity by >1000% and the team they are helping as completely free.  Both teams are assigned to the same Sprint as per the advice above.  Is there any way to fix this?  I've tried un-allocating the teams and re-allocating, but still see the same result.

Many thanks!