An agile methodology is an approach to project management in which teams deliver projects in functional increments rather than all at once when the project concludes. Many people feel that this method is advantageous because an iterative process enables teams to start delivering value to customers faster. 

There are multiple kinds of agile capacity planning. Team capacity planning is the process of evaluating the total number of hours your team can commit to the project in the allotted time frame. 

At the most basic level, team capacity is calculated by determining each team member’s available hours and then adding them together. The result is the amount of available work you have to allocate to various tasks. Then you can calculate the number of hours each task will require for team members to complete, which allows you to plan the best way to split up and allocate your team’s available hours.

Resource capacity planning in an agile environment helps you assess the resources that are available for a given project. While multiple kinds of resources can be quantified and allocated, team capacity planning is usually one of the most important aspects of resource capacity planning.

Agile capacity planning frequently happens before a sprint. Sprints are common practice for teams that abide by agile and scrum methodologies. A sprint is a short, predefined amount of time within which a team works to finish a particular set of tasks. Teams often perform agile capacity planning before a sprint to ensure they will be able to meet their goals for the sprint. However, this is only one agile capacity planning example.

Planning and managing resource capacity is much easier when you equip yourself with the right tools. For example, an agile capacity planning template could help to streamline your planning process. A template designed for the kind of software your team uses, like a team capacity planning excel template, is even better.

However, resource management software is an even more effective way to improve agile team capacity planning. Resource management software like BigTime can prevent scheduling mistakes, automatically match projects to the team members who have the appropriate skills, enable you to course correct in real-time, provide valuable data-driven insights, and more. A sprint capacity planning calculator can help you assess the available resources for an upcoming sprint. 

Velocity in Scrum

Scrum is a framework within the agile methodology designed to improve efficiency by encouraging teams to work together. It’s most commonly used in the context of software development, but you can apply the underlying concepts to nearly any kind of team-based project. 

Scrum is closely related to the idea of agile methodology. Both scrum and agile are characterized by a focus on an iterative process and learning through experience. However, scrum refers to the actual framework, whereas agile is a more philosophical term that refers to your team’s mindset as they work through the project. 

Capacity planning in scrum is just as valuable as in any agile capacity planning scenario. But what is capacity in scrum? Does it differ in any way from agile capacity planning? The simple answer is that scrum capacity is essentially the same as agile capacity. It indicates the amounts of various kinds of resources you can allocate throughout the project (mainly the number of hours your team is available to work). 

Capacity planning differs from velocity in scrum, which is the number of stories a team can complete within a sprint. Stories are the smallest unit of work that can be measured from the end-user’s perspective (for example, adding one new function the user can perform). It’s important to understand the difference between scrum velocity vs capacity. Learning all you can about agile methodology and scrum frameworks, including how to calculate capacity in scrum, will help you plan sprints more effectively.

Jira is a software tool many teams use to manage scrum sprints. If your team is one of them, you can improve your sprint capacity planning in Jira by integrating Jira with an agile capacity planning solution like BigTime. A capacity planning Jira plugin allows you to combine these two valuable tools seamlessly for even better team capacity planning in Jira.

Agile Capacity Calculator

If you’re unfamiliar with capacity planning, you might not know where to begin. You might be scratching your head, wondering: “who does capacity planning in scrum?” Typically, the people who need to participate in scrum capacity planning are the product owner, the person in charge of the development team, and any relevant team members. 

One kind of tool that can be immensely useful for agile capacity planning is an agile capacity calculator. A capacity planning calculator can help you calculate the number of resources available to dedicate to your project in an agile environment. Remember that agile capacity vs velocity are two different terms, though they are related. You may need to use different tools to track agile velocity for your projects, but some capacity management platforms may also include velocity management tools.

There are other ways to approach agile capacity planning as well. One viable method is to use a capacity planning template. Google Sheets is one program you could use for this purpose. You could also try using an agile capacity planning excel template.

A reliable and safe capacity calculator can greatly help teams that need to improve their agile capacity planning. It’s very important that your assessment of your team’s available resources is accurate before you move forward with a sprint.

Agile Resource Capacity Planning

Agile resource capacity planning is an integral part of any project. It’s the point at which you evaluate the available resources and decide how best to allocate them. This evaluation usually happens just before a sprint, which is a short time frame within which a team completes a predetermined number of agile capacity planning story points. 

In capacity planning, a story point is the unit of measurement that represents how long it takes the team to complete one story (one complete task that’s definable from the end-user’s perspective). Some teams use a sprint capacity calculator to help them with resource capacity planning. Other teams use team capacity planning templates to help them manage the team’s availability.

Whatever tool you choose to employ, it’s wise to make sure you have an effective method of resource capacity management. One of the most reliable ways to improve your team’s resource capacity management is with resource management software like BigTime.

Effortless Schedule Management

Resource capacity planning software makes it easy to see which team members are available so you can allocate their time to the tasks that need it most. The improved visibility can not only help streamline scheduling, but it can also prevent staff turnover by ensuring everyone’s workload remains manageable.

Automatic Skills Matching

Every project requires a different variety of skills. It’s often challenging to assign every team member to the projects that best match their strengths. However, resource management software can do it automatically by keeping track of each team member’s proficiency in relevant skills.

Real-time Course Correction

You can get a bird’s-eye view of how your team is allotting their time and how other resources are being managed. You can even use the data to make projections about future project needs. These insights enable you to make quick decisions to keep the project on course. BigTime’s resource management software shows you detailed breakdowns of impactful metrics like billable hours, staff utilization, estimated and actual resources, and more.

Data-driven Hiring Decisions

Resource management software gives you a more complete and accurate picture of your team capacity. The data the software tracks can give you valuable insights that allow for more informed hiring decisions.

What Is Team Capacity In Agile?

Capacity planning in agile is often one of the most critical steps to ensure your team completes the project on time. It’s important to begin the project with a complete understanding of the resources required and the resources available.

At this point, hopefully, we’ve answered the question: “what is team capacity in agile?” We’ve also shown you how to calculate team capacity in agile environments. However, these are just the most fundamental basics of capacity planning — there’s much more to learn if you want to fully understand team capacity planning. 

Once again, the key to better agile capacity planning is often better tools. Teams that are struggling to plan successful sprints could consider adopting more effective resource management tools — for example, an agile resource capacity planning template. However, there’s more than one kind of template, and your team should use the one best suited to your process. If you use Excel for agile team capacity planning, Excel templates would be the most useful.

Of course, one of the most powerful solutions is resource management software. Resource management software can improve your agile capacity planning in numerous ways, like making it easier to manage schedules and automatically matching team members with projects that align with their skills. BigTime is an excellent example of a platform that can provide these benefits and many more.