Managing capacity
When managing work across multiple teams, it can be too easy to assign too much work to a team, thereby exceeding the capacity of that team. Portfolio for Jira makes it easy for you to monitor team capacity in the improved interface.
An overbooked sprint vs a healthy sprint in the timeline
What is team capacity?
Team capacity is simply defined as the ratio of the units of work that a team takes on for a given period of time against the maximum units of work that a team can take on for that given period of time. "Maximum units of work" essentially mean the one of the following:
- For Scrum teams using story points, this is the velocity of a sprint.
- For Scrum teams using time-based estimates (days or hours), this is the weekly capacity (in hours) of the team.
- For Kanban teams, this is the weekly capacity (in hours) of the team.
See how to set the maximum units of work in Creating teams.
From the sample sprints provided, note the following details:
- The associated team estimates work in story points, and is therefore a Scrum team.
- From the sprint dates, we can infer that the Scrum team works in 2-week sprints.
- In each sprint, the team has a velocity of 30 story points. This means that the team can finish a maximum of 30 story points in each sprint.
- Sprint Dingo has been allocated 30 story points, which does not exceed team velocity. Sprint Dingo is then a healthy sprint, and is displaying a green capacity bar.
- Sprint Echidna has been 31 story points, which exceeds team velocity. Sprint Echidna is then an overbooked sprint, and is displaying a red capacity bar.
At any time, you may need to do any of the following tasks, to manage team capacity: