5 Free Capacity Planning Templates

Capacity planning compares the work a team has agreed to do with the hours it actually has to do it, over a period, and makes the gap visible before it becomes missed deadlines and overtime. Teams that do it well say no earlier and deliver more; teams that do not discover their capacity at the retrospective. The arithmetic is simple and the inputs are not: available hours after leave, meetings and support, and demand estimated honestly rather than optimistically.

Five templates: a team capacity calculator that works out available hours per person per week, a demand-versus-capacity sheet that puts committed work against it, a quarterly capacity plan by month, a hiring plan that converts a persistent gap into roles, and a capacity summary in the form leadership can act on. The Excel workbook calculates the gaps; the Word and PDF versions carry the summary and the hiring case.

Download the templates

The five templates

• Team capacity calculator. Contracted hours less meetings, admin and support, less leave, per person and in total.
• Demand versus capacity. Work items with estimated hours and a committed flag; the gap sheet compares them.
• By-week and quarterly views. Capacity and demand per week and per month, with utilization.
• Hiring plan. A persistent gap converted into FTE, with start date and cost.
• Leadership summary. Capacity, demand, what will and will not be delivered, and the decision requested.

Available hours are not contracted hours

A person contracted for 40 hours has perhaps 25 for planned work after meetings, email, support and the administration of being employed, and fewer in weeks with leave or training. Teams that plan on 40 overcommit by 60 percent and call it a productivity problem. The capacity calculator asks for meetings and BAU explicitly; measure them for two weeks with a work log rather than guessing, and the number is usually higher than anyone expected. The team capacity planning guide covers the measurement and the conversation that follows.

The three decisions a gap allows

When committed demand exceeds capacity, there are three honest responses: defer something (and say which), descope something (and say what), or add capacity (and say who, from when, at what cost). "Work harder" is not a fourth option; it is a decision to find out at the deadline. The leadership summary is structured to force one of the three, which is why it ends with a decision requested rather than a status. The reporting capacity to leadership guide shows how to present it.

Utilization targets of 70 to 85 percent on committed work leave room for the unplanned. A team at 95 percent committed has no capacity for the incident, the urgent request or the person who leaves.

From gap to hiring plan

• A gap that persists for a quarter is a staffing gap; a gap for a month is a scheduling one.
• Convert hours per week to FTE using the team's real available hours per person, not 40.
• Contract for peaks, hire for trends, reassign where another team is under-allocated.
• Cost it fully: the employee cost calculator adds the 25 to 40 percent on top of salary.
• Hand the roles to the workforce planning templates for the longer horizon.

Key takeaways

• Capacity is available hours after meetings, BAU and leave; measure it, do not assume 40.
• Compare committed demand with capacity by week; the gap is a decision, not a status.
• The three honest responses are defer, descope or add capacity; plan at 70 to 85 percent utilization.
• A gap that persists a quarter becomes a hiring plan, costed fully.