Capacity planning
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What is Capacity planning?
IT capacity planning compares the available capacity of teams (in days or FTEs) with the demand from projects and run work, so leaders can anticipate overload and decide what to staff, postpone, or hire for.
Key points
It answers a simple question: do we have enough capacity for our project portfolio over the coming months? It is done per team, per skill, and per period.
Unlike a project schedule, it starts from people and their real availability (leave, run work, meetings), not only from the tasks to deliver.
Formula
Capacity gap = available capacity − planned demand
Example
A team of 8 has 8 × 18 = 144 available days in a month. If planned demand is 170 days, the gap is −26 days: you must prioritize or add people.
Related terms
From definition to practice
Workload computes these metrics automatically from your allocations and timesheets.
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