Hi Reader,

How many spaces do you have in life for sprawling brainstorms and uninhibited free association? Our guess is: not many. And that’s a shame, because conversations like this help exercise our creative and critical thinking muscles (and they are fun, to boot).

That’s why we created Down The Rabbit Hole—an event for folks who love obscure facts, connecting disparate dots, and coming up with great analogies. In each session, we share two or three interesting factoids and the conversation builds from there. We’ve talked about everything from how Einstein Rings compare to performance reviews to how Tatreez relates to building team culture. No self-editing, no judgment, just the weird and wonderful neural sparks in our brains.

Curious? Join us at the next DTRH on Wednesday, May 1st at 12PM ET on Zoom.

In the meantime, enjoy this week’s edition of The Murmuration!

Each week, we share an applied tip or did-you-know to help you build knowledge and hone essential skills that help you kick butt at work and in life.

Capacity Planning, Part 1

Your boss comes to you and says, “I need your team to take on this extra work”—let’s say it’s making 50 more widgets next quarter. Based on your weekly one-on-ones with direct reports, you are pretty sure that everyone is already maxed out and these extra widgets are going to send morale plummeting. But you also don’t feel like you can just say “no”...what can you do?

Well, if you had a capacity plan, you could point to a well-reasoned model showing how your team spends its time, plus tangible data on how many hours are currently being utilized. With that data, you could initiate a conversation about deprioritizing other work to accommodate the new ask, adding more resources, identifying efficiencies in how the work is getting done, or at least managing the motivational challenges that would be incurred by piling on additional work.

Capacity planning isn’t the most exciting topic in the world, but it being a critical skill for The Middle is a hill we will die on here at Starling. As a manager, a capacity plan gives you agency and power, which is why—across the next two newsletters—we’re going to help you build one. In today's part 1 today, we cover the basics and first steps. In next week's part 2, we’ll bring it home.

That way, the next time someone asks you to take on extra work, you’ll be prepared to advocate for yourself and your team with confidence and ease.

What is a capacity plan?

A capacity plan is a dynamic model that can be built in a simple spreadsheet and gives you information about how much work your team can complete in a certain period of time. It includes data about people, work, and time. By looking at combinations of this data, your capacity plan can answer questions like:

• How many people do I need to complete a given amount of work in a given amount of time?
• How much work can a given amount of people complete in a given amount of time?
• How much time will it take for a given number of people to complete a given amount of work?

A capacity plan helps with forecasting and planning for the future, monitoring workload, and ultimately managing a team's wellbeing.

Using a capacity plan

As with any data model (thanks to recent speaker Emily McInerney for this advice), when you’re working with a capacity plan, it’s essential to be clear on what question you are hoping to answer. In the case of our extra widget dilemma, the big question is:

• Does my team have capacity for this new work?

But to answer this question, I need more information. I need to answer a few additional component questions:

• What is my team’s total capacity for making widgets?
• What is my team’s current workload?
• How much of my team’s total capacity does the current workload take up?
• How much excess capacity does my team then have?
• How much capacity is required to complete the work being asked?

The good news is that we can answer these questions! All we need is a capacity plan that describes:

• The number people on the team who make widgets and how much time they are meant to be spending making widgets
• How much time it takes to make a widget, plus current and anticipated workload

People & Capacity

This could be a whole article unto itself, but let's assume you're not starting from scratch—consult job descriptions and your manager to figure out how people are expected to be spending their time. Here’s how one of my widget maker’s week and quarter breaks down, according to the job description:

A few important notes:

Note #1: Don’t assume your company expects a 40-hour workweek—some companies may expect more (and a progressive few may even expect less).

Note #2: Don’t forget to factor in time off like vacation, sick days, holidays, or company retreats. In the table above, I’ve factored in two weeks off per quarter, which is why I multiply the hours per week by 11 instead of 13 to get hours per quarter.

Note #3: Don’t assume the theoretical job description matches reality. It’s essential to cross reference this ideal against how people are actually spending their time. You can do this by asking the team to track their time for a period, look back at historical calendar data, or simply estimate based on their experience.

Note #4: Don’t make the mistake of believing people work perfect eight-hour days. I may technically begin at 9AM and end at 5PM, but I also get snacks, take breaks, and chat to my friends on Slack for part of that time. It’s common to include a buffer in your plans to account for that non-working time. In this case, we’re using 10%.

In reality, my widget maker’s time may look more like this:

Depending on your goals, you may want to create an “ideal” capacity plan, a “real” one, or both (to understand the gap between them and find ways to bridge it). In our situation, we want to understand the reality of the situation in order to be able to determine if we can realistically make these 50 widgets with our current team and processes.

I now know that each of my widget makers has 242 hours of widget-making time per quarter. If I have a team of 10 widget makers, I have a total of 2,420 hours of widget-making capacity across the team per quarter. Now we're getting somewhere!

Next week...

In next week's edition of The Murmuration we will take a look at the work of making widgets itself, plus a few more tips and tricks to finish this exercise.

If you want to follow along, create a table describing how your team spends its time (ideally or in reality). If you don’t have a team, map your own work and time breakdown—a personal capacity plan can be just as important as a team one!

Finally, know that capacity planning is complex subject with much more to it. This series of articles will get you off to a great start, but to go deeper, watch out for our 4-week Capacity Planning course launching this summer.

Each week, we touch on an aspect of happiness and health at work, how to build it, and how to drive positive change in the workplace.

Reframing Our Mindset on Exercise

If a particular activity was proven to make employees happier and more productive, wouldn’t you make space for it as an important part of work? I believe Alan Kohll was onto something in his Forbes article Why We Pay Our Employees To Exercise At Work. We make space in our capacity plans for things like professional development and one-on-ones with managers, why not physical activity, which has a battery of research supporting it's positive impact on performance?

While I’m sure you don’t need to be convinced of exercise’s benefits, let’s look at an incomplete list of how it helps us, just so we’re aligned:

• It improves our sleep, vigor, and task focus (To Improve Your Work Performance, Get Some Exercise, HBR)
• It elevates our mood, improves concentration, and sharpens our memory (Regular Exercise Is Part of Your Job, HBR)
• It increases energy, makes us happier, and keeps us sharper into old age (Exercise Increases Productivity, The Brookings Institution)

Moving our bodies seems like a no-brainer. So, why do so few of us see exercise as a critical part of being happier, healthier, and more successful at work?

My relationship with exercise changed dramatically when I began seeing it as an essential part of work—a mindset I thank The Practice of Groundedness by Brad Stulberg for. For many years, exercise felt like something I should do, but often played second fiddle to important work meetings or projects. Since reframing my thoughts, I no longer feel bad for getting to my desk 30 minutes “late” because I wanted to squeeze a workout in—the time spent exercising pays off in how it improves my mood and concentration for the rest of the day.

As leaders, we can help create an environment where being healthy isn’t seen as “taking time” from work but supporting it. Here’s a start:

• Be a good model. Culture trickles down from the top. Leaders should provide a model for how to think about exercise and incorporate it into the schedule. Don’t just talk the talk…walk the walk. Mention it openly in meetings, block time for it on your calendar, mark yourself “Out Exercising” on Slack when you’re working out, and be candid if you stumble on your commitment to exercise (then model getting back to it).
• Embrace inclusivity. Exercise isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing and physical activity is personal to the individual. In case anyone needs a reminder: You absolutely cannot judge health solely by what you see. Be very mindful of your assumptions and language on this topic. Recognize and honor the diversity of physical abilities in our workforce and respect boundaries. Different people may choose to engage with and talk about exercise and activity differently…and that is their right.
• Incorporate activity into the day-to-day. Build the option for movement into regular activities. Propose walking or stretching phone meetings when appropriate, incorporate brief stretching or activity breaks into team meetings, or designate a particular 30-minute block of time where the whole team is encouraged to go move (if they so choose).
• Draft clear and explicit policies. What makes it into our employee manuals, team handbooks, and official policies inevitably carries weight. Don’t mandate exercise, but be clear and explicit about how you make space for it. Make a point to mention it in onboarding with language like, "We recognize the interconnectedness of mind and body and the impact of wellbeing on performance and happiness at work. We encourage you to take the time you need, when you need it (being mindful of colleagues and required commitments), to care for your health."
• Work it into professional development. Similarly, what we include in our learning programs communicates what we value. Every now and again, consider hosting an upskilling session dedicated to a health topic or encouraging a teammate who is passionate about a particular activity (CrossFit, yoga, whatever!) to share about it at a team lunch and learn.
• Include fitness expenses in stipends. Yes, some companies do offer perks like in-office exercise facilities or gym stipends. But what if we also welcomed under-desk treadmills as part of our work-from-home technology stipends? Or yoga classes as part of a learning and development stipend?

As leaders, we influence our teams with policies, practices, behaviors, and words. Using these tools to create culture in which the relationship between exercise and work is in harmony instead of at odds is a great way to help people thrive—and when people thrive, businesses thrive, too.

Each week, we collect a few great reads from a variety of disciplines to help you forge new connections and gain fresh perspectives.

• ​Here’s how to master the skill employers want most (Fast Company). Questioning tactics to enhance analytical thinking—written by yours truly.
• ​5 Strategies for Improving Mental Health at Work (HBR). How to drive cultural change at work to reduce unnecessary stress and anxiety.
• ​Carry On and Keep Calm (Character Lab). How rituals help us through stressful situations.
• ​Younger Employees Want a 4-Day Workweek. Small Businesses May Be Asked to Oblige (Inc.) Considering how we might prepare for a shorter workweek.
• ​A Revolution in Time (Nautilus). One philosopher and artist's attempt at viewing clocks and time from nature's perspective.

Each week, we highlight some of the great things going on across the Starling community. Members can click on any of the links below to explore further.

• At Crushing Your Next Interview with AI, Anna Zide shared tips on how to use ChatGPT to help prepare for an interview.
• ​On Friday, Andrea beautifully compared life changes to the process of molting—and taught us that starlings are one of few birds to molt twice a year!
• At our coffee chat on Tuesday, Eric, Mark, and two Rachels talked about whether therapy (or any parts of it) belong in the workplace. Also discussed: gardening 😀

Given that you made it this far, we felt you ought to be rewarded with one of Jeff’s Famous Dad Jokes:

Rachel & the Starling Team