---
name: capacity-planning-16b604f97d9f
description: >
  Analyze team capacity, plan resource allocation, and balance workload across
  projects. Forecast staffing needs and optimize team utilization while
  maintaining sustainable pace.
---

# Capacity Planning

## Table of Contents

- [Overview](#overview)
- [When to Use](#when-to-use)
- [Quick Start](#quick-start)
- [Reference Guides](#reference-guides)
- [Best Practices](#best-practices)

## Overview

Capacity planning ensures teams have sufficient resources to deliver work at sustainable pace, prevents burnout, and enables accurate commitment to stakeholders.

## When to Use

- Annual or quarterly planning cycles
- Allocating people to projects
- Adjusting team size
- Planning for holidays and absences
- Forecasting resource needs
- Balancing multiple projects
- Identifying bottlenecks

## Quick Start

Minimal working example:

```python
# Team capacity calculation and planning

class CapacityPlanner:
    # Standard work hours per week
    STANDARD_WEEK_HOURS = 40

    # Activities that reduce available capacity
    OVERHEAD_HOURS = {
        'meetings': 5,           # standups, 1-on-1s, planning
        'training': 2,           # learning new tech
        'administrative': 2,     # emails, approvals
        'support': 2,            # helping teammates
        'contingency': 2         # interruptions, emergencies
    }

    def __init__(self, team_size, sprint_duration_weeks=2):
        self.team_size = team_size
        self.sprint_duration_weeks = sprint_duration_weeks
        self.members = []

    def calculate_team_capacity(self):
        """Calculate available capacity hours"""
        # Base capacity
        base_hours = self.team_size * self.STANDARD_WEEK_HOURS * self.sprint_duration_weeks

// ... (see reference guides for full implementation)
```

## Reference Guides

Detailed implementations in the `references/` directory:

| Guide | Contents |
|---|---|
| [Capacity Assessment](references/capacity-assessment.md) | Capacity Assessment |
| [Capacity Planning Template](references/capacity-planning-template.md) | Capacity Planning Template |
| [Resource Leveling](references/resource-leveling.md) | Resource Leveling |
| [Capacity Forecasting](references/capacity-forecasting.md) | Capacity Forecasting |

## Best Practices

### ✅ DO

- Plan capacity at 85% utilization (15% buffer)
- Account for meetings, training, and overhead
- Include known absences (vacation, holidays)
- Identify skill bottlenecks early
- Balance workload fairly across team
- Review capacity monthly
- Adjust plans based on actual velocity
- Cross-train on critical skills
- Communicate realistic commitments to stakeholders
- Build contingency for emergencies

### ❌ DON'T

- Plan at 100% utilization
- Ignore meetings and overhead
- Assign work without checking skills
- Create overload with continuous surprises
- Forget about learning/training time
- Leave capacity planning to last minute
- Overcommit team consistently
- Burn out key people
- Ignore team feedback on workload
- Plan without considering absences


---
Source attribution: aj-geddes
Original project: https://github.com/aj-geddes/useful-ai-prompts/blob/3f5182cfd739fc113f4af5244a1cf342ad7f7911/skills/capacity-planning/SKILL.md
License: MIT
License information: https://opensource.org/license/mit
Original upstream instructions; downloaded from Mega AI Hub.

## Upstream license notice

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2025 AJ Geddes

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal
in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is
furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.


# Mega AI Hub resource metadata

Creator / publisher: aj-geddes
Original project: https://github.com/aj-geddes/useful-ai-prompts/blob/3f5182cfd739fc113f4af5244a1cf342ad7f7911/skills/capacity-planning/SKILL.md
Attribution basis: Source repository record

Fields of work: Operations, Product Management, Project & Program Management
Roles: Business Process Analyst, Growth Product Manager, Operations Manager, Project Manager, Scrum Master
Specialties: Specialty not specified
Tools: Tool not specified
Country applicability: Country not specified
Classification basis: Source catalog labels
Instruction SHA-256: b32c06d60863fff98652f5957878200986394875f9c6ccc35c22937d7ae9b3b5