Review your capacity plan

The capacity page helps you create a comprehensive plan to understand how much work your teams can accomplish in a program increment (PI). It provides a simple, flexible, and spreadsheet-like experience for all managers to view and contribute. Based on user inputs, the page calculates each team’s available capacity, aggregates the data, and compares it to forecasted work for the PI.

This article describes how to review and take action on your plan. For more information about the capacity page, read the previous articles: Build your capacity plan and Understand the capacity page.

On this page:

• Review page filters
• Visually compare work to capacity
• View aggregated data in the plan summary
• View capacity data on the forecast page

Review page filters

During the review phase, it is important to pay attention to filters because they influence what is displayed in the plan summary. Even a small adjustment in your filters can significantly impact the capacity summary.

For example, if you narrow down filters to a few specific programs that are "at capacity" while others are "over capacity", your summary will indicate you're "at capacity". Similarly, switching from the default work item level filter of "epics" to "features" can result in a completely different outcome.

Visually compare work to capacity

The intuitive bar graph in this plan summary provides a visual representation of forecasted work versus available capacity for whatever scope you have set in your page filters. By comparing these two factors, you can quickly determine if you are over, under, or at capacity. This information allows you to make informed decisions about projects, people, and timelines.

Over capacity means that you do not have enough capacity to complete all of your work. This can result in missed deadlines or burnout.

To address this issue, you may want to:

1. Adjust forecasts to decrease scope or drop a work item—don’t let your teams burn out.
2. Increase capacity percentage, for example, by deprioritizing work not included in the PI plan.
3. Reduce buffer, for example by postponing non-essential corporate training.

Under capacity means that you do not have enough forecasted work to fulfill all your capacity. This presents an opportunity to get more work done.

To address this issue, you may want to:

1. Adjust forecasts to increase scope or add a work item—make that stretch goal a reality.
2. Decrease capacity percentage, and for example, take on that long-awaited maintenance project.
3. Increase buffer, and for example, use the time for some valuable training or a company offsite.

At capacity means that forecasted work precisely equals available capacity. Keep in mind that reaching this perfect balance is quite rare, but it can serve as a guiding principle for capacity planning.

Finally, No capacity plan simply means that you have not started building your capacity plan or forecasting work.

View aggregated data in the plan summary

The total cards provide an overview of aggregated data based on the scope set in your page filters. Each card displays the sum of all team-level data from the plan details table, except the total capacity percentage, which is calculated as an average. The totals cards also offer a glimpse into the previous capacity plan for quick reference and provide tooltips with helpful definitions.

View capacity data on the forecast page

As referenced above, capacity is only one side of the coin. Regardless of which one you work on first, you are always comparing available capacity to forecasted work, and data from each page displays on its counterpart.

For example, if you plan capacity first, you’ll know exactly how much work you can feasibly accomplish for the program increment (PI), making forecasting quick and simple. On the other hand, if you run the forecast first, you’ll know precisely how much capacity you need to accomplish your goals for the PI.

To learn more, read the Run a forecast article →