Capacity Planning

Quaterly Team Capacity Planning

This formal process provides a structured approach to team capacity planning, enabling more accurate resource allocation, improved project predictability, and enhanced team performance.

Input

Prerequisites

1. Ask people about their vacation plans for the next quarter.
2. Assess the size of tech debt (and decide how much time to invest there to keep it under control).
3. Estimate the team’s “run the business” needs (unforeseen things that need to be done - like a vulnerability scanner detecting a compromised library or a root certificate migration / Java certification store update).
4. Estimate the team’s on-call spend (either based on statistics or based on a simple assumption that on-call activities will consume 100% of the time of an engineer on duty).

Ouput

The process

1. Data Collection & Analysis:
   • Historical Data Review: Analyze past performance data, including time spent on on-call duties, “run the business” activities, and technical debt remediation.
   • Technical Debt Assessment: Evaluate the current depth of the technical debt backlog to determine the necessary allocation for remediation.
2. Resource Allocation:
   • Calculate Available Team Time: Determine the total available engineering time per quarter, accounting for planned vacations and other leave. Reduce the capacity for newcomers (typically 50%).
   • Allocate Time for Essential Activities:
     • Allocate 10% of team time for operational on-call duties.
     • Allocate 10% of team time for “run the business” activities.
     • Allocate 20% of team time for technical debt remediation.
   • Allocate Time for Product OKRs: Dedicate the remaining 60% of team time to achieving the team’s Product Objectives and Key Results.
3. Team Collaboration & Refinement:
   • Joint Planning Session: Conduct a collaborative meeting with Technical Project Managers (TPMs) and engineering leadership to review the proposed allocations and discuss any adjustments.
   • Iterative Refinement: Continuously monitor actual team performance against the planned capacity and adjust (and communicate!) allocations as needed based on unforeseen circumstances and changing priorities.

Scale it up

1. This process should be run for all engineering pods in a team.
2. The simplest way to get from pods to team level is to sum up pod capacities (unfortunately here we’re losing the precision since the pods are not interchangeable).
3. Sum up team capacity to get to the organization level.

Key Considerations

• Accurate Capacity Planning:
  • Essential for successful project execution.
  • Provides a framework for aligning development efforts with mid-term deliverables.
• Data-Driven Decision Making:
  • Utilizes historical data and real-time information (e.g., JIRA data) to inform resource allocation decisions.
• Balanced Workload:
  • Ensures that sufficient time is allocated for operational responsibilities, technical debt, and product delivery to maintain long-term team health and sustainability.

• Management