Capacity vs demand planner

Count roles, not people, and count hours that are really available.

1. 01

   List the roles.

   A role is a job someone does: support, production, bookkeeping.

2. 02

   Productive hours each, per week.

   Not 40. Take out meetings, admin and time off. Be honest; this number drives everything else.

3. 03

   Hours committed, per week.

   The work the role already has to get done in a normal week: recurring tasks plus open projects.

4. 04

   Growth, if you have a number.

   The share your workload grows each month. Leave it blank to see today only.

A role that is full has no room for anything that goes wrong.

• % full is hours committed divided by hours available. The tick on the bar marks your warning level.
• Hand off or add shows two ways back to the warning level: move some hours off the role, or add about this much of a person.
• The month it fills up uses your growth rate and shows when each role crosses the warning level and 100%.
• The team view adds it up. Room in one role doesn’t cover a full role unless the work suits the person, so check skills before you rebalance.

• Capacity = people × productive hours each. % full = hours committed ÷ capacity.
• Hours over the warning level = hours committed − warning level × capacity.
• People to add = hours over ÷ (warning level × productive hours each).
• Months until a level = ln(level ÷ % full now) ÷ ln(1 + monthly growth), rounded up to the next whole month. The projection assumes the same growth every month and no change to the team.

It is only as good as the hours you give it.

It doesn’t know skills, seasons or who can cover whom. The warning level is a rule of thumb you can change. Use the result to start a conversation about the work, not to settle it.