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 2
Last week we kicked off a two-parter on capacity planning (catch up here)—this week, we’re bringing it on home. Whether you are a manager of a team or an individual contributor, understanding how time should be spent, what it takes to get work done, and what you can or cannot take on at any given moment can be a powerful tool in your toolbox. Having a clear capacity model and concrete data empowers you to have productive conversations about how to accommodate the needs of the business while still advocating for individual well-being.
Ok. So. As a reminder, we’re currently trying to answer the question: Does my team have capacity to make 50 extra widgets this quarter? We’ve already established that my team of 10 widget makers has 2,420 hours of widget-making capacity this quarter. But what we don’t yet know is anything about the work of making widgets itself.
Work and Time
How much time does it take to make a single widget? We could certainly come up with an estimate based on our experience, but remember that cognitive biases are constantly at work, often skewing our memory. We remember things we deem important and sometimes discard specific details in favor of generalities. We boil things down to key moments. And we often overestimate our contributions and abilities. All of these biases can lead to inaccuracies in our estimation of how much time it takes to make a single widget—and when we multiply that out across hundreds of widgets, we end up with a seriously flawed capacity model.
My preference is to come up with a number by time-tracking—try not to roll your eyes too hard. I get it…no one loves time-tracking. At best, it is annoying. At worst, it can feel micromanagey or threatening. But with the right framing and culture, you can get people on board.
- Framing. Communicate transparently about what you will and will not do with the data. Explain how it will enable you to protect and advocate for the team more effectively and empower all of us to identify efficiencies and improvements. Be clear that it will not inform performance evaluations—and if you do say that, please stick to it.
- Culture. Time-tracking is most successful in a culture where trust and safety have already been established. Your team should already have proof that you stick to your word, actively advocate for them, and that it’s OK to speak freely and be vulnerable. If that’s the case, they’ll take you at your word and engage in the activity honestly. If not, proceed with caution (or not at all).
How to conduct a successful time-tracking exercise could be its own article. In a nutshell: track your time in meaningful increments (e.g., 15 minutes) and meaningful categories (in the case of making widgets, that includes things like designing the widget, consulting with stakeholders, developing the widget, and quality assurance and testing). The more detailed the data, the more you can do with it. But don’t go overboard. Start simple to avoid creating an insurmountable barrier to completion—some data is better than no data.
Call on your friendly neighborhood spreadsheet wizard as needed to help you pull individual data into a team-wide aggregate. Here’s what mine looks like:
From this data, I can see that it takes, on average, 10 hours to make a single widget. Given my team-wide capacity of 2,420 widget-making hours, I know (in theory) I have a capacity for 242 widgets. If I’ve been tracking how much work we’ve already been asked to complete, I can answer the question of whether my team has capacity for an extra 50 widgets or not.
I happen to know we’ve already committed to creating 250 widgets, which means we’re already over capacity and don’t have space to make 50 more.
It all comes together in this beautiful beast of a spreadsheet (which you can make a copy of here):
The great news is that, with this model, I can now have a really productive conversation with my boss to identify the right solution:
- Are there 50 existing widgets we are able to deprioritize?
- Are we able to hire two additional full-time or contract widget makers to provide an additional ~500 hours of capacity?
- Are there ways we might automate or outsource some of the widget-making process to decrease the 10 hours per widget time and thus increase the total number of widgets we can make in a quarter?
- Can we offer spot bonuses to individuals who are asked to take on work above and beyond the modeled capacity to incentivize them and demonstrate our appreciation?
Note that you’re not saying “no.” You’re working creatively and strategically with leadership to find solutions that accommodate the needs and priorities of the business and you’re holding the line on protecting and advocating for your team. Look at you go, Starling!
A Final Note
Congratulations! You’ve now completed Capacity Planning 101! Be aware that things can definitely get more complicated. For example, you might have different kinds of widgets that take different amounts of time, different roles creating widgets (e.g., a widget maker and senior widget maker), or seasonal fluctuations in your workload.
If you’re interested in learning more, watch out for our 4-week Capacity Planning course, launching this summer. And in the meantime, if you want some thought partners on your own capacity plan, I encourage you to join the Starling Community—we’re always willing to help each other out.
