How much project work can your team really finish next week? Start with each person’s available hours, subtract leave, meetings and other work, then keep a small allowance for the unexpected. Compare what remains with the work due. The example and table below show the calculation; you can copy the table into a spreadsheet or project note.
Key takeaways
- Calculate capacity per person and week before adding team totals.
- Separate focus, collaboration and flexible windows; hours are not interchangeable for every task.
- Compare demand by skill and work type, as well as by total hours.
- Change scope, sequence or dates when the plan does not fit.
Capacity, effort and duration
Usable project capacity = declared availability − planned absence − fixed commitments − operational work − uncertainty allowance. Count a known support shift or review explicitly; reserve the allowance for variation you cannot name in advance. Set it from recent interruptions and estimate errors, then adjust it as evidence changes. There is no universal percentage that suits every team.
Effort is active work, for example 12 person-hours. Duration is elapsed time, for example four working days if the owner can contribute three hours a day. An approval wait extends duration without necessarily increasing effort. A 50% allocation is only a starting assumption: leave, meetings and support can reduce the usable hours inside it.
Availability also has a shape. A 90-minute gap can suit a contained edit, while an architecture review may need a shared decision window and a complex design task may need a protected focus block. Classify remaining hours as focus (uninterrupted work), collaboration (time when the right people are available together) or flexible (small tasks that fit around other work). Use the classification to match tasks to windows, not to score individuals. Our guide to managing a fragmented workday explains how to leave restart notes when work crosses several blocks.
PMI's Agile Capacity article describes partial assignments across projects, planning float and revising the resource plan as circumstances change. The worksheet below turns those principles into a weekly decision.
Copyable weekly capacity worksheet
Calculate one person at a time; do not record private reasons for absence. For example, someone has 35 available hours, 4 hours of leave, 5 hours of meetings, 3 hours of support and a 3-hour allowance. Their usable project time is 35 − 4 − 5 − 3 − 3 = 20 hours. This is capacity, not a promise that every task will fit.
Copy one row per person and week. “Fixed commitments” groups leave, meetings, support and work on other projects. Keep the detail in your own notes if it helps decisions.
| Person / role | Available hours | Fixed commitments | Allowance | Usable hours |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Example person | 35 | 12 | 3 | 20 |
| Your person | __ | __ | __ | available − commitments − allowance |
After calculating the total, note how many of those usable hours need an uninterrupted block or a shared meeting slot. A spare hour cannot replace the wrong skill or a missed approval.
Then list demand separately. This keeps an apparent surplus in one role from concealing a shortage in another.
| Deliverable or task | Owner / skill | Effort range | Work type | Needed by | Dependency or decision |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copy for each task | named role | low–high hours | focus / collaboration / flex | date | named input and owner |
Add the low and high effort estimates by skill and work type. Compare each total with the matching capacity, not just the team total. Check that collaboration windows overlap and that the needed skill is available before the deadline. A task without a suitable window is not scheduled merely because the weekly arithmetic balances.
Worked example: five-person hybrid team
Illustrative figures, not a benchmark. Five people each have 35 declared hours next week: 175 hours in all. Planned absence removes 14 hours, meetings 28, support and other known work 22, and a chosen uncertainty allowance 16. Usable project capacity is 175 − 14 − 28 − 22 − 16 = 95 hours. The team maps these to 44 focus, 21 collaboration and 30 flexible hours.
The proposed release requires 112 hours, including 58 focus hours. It exceeds total capacity by 17 hours and focus capacity by 14. The team postpones an optional dashboard, separates content entry from specialist development, gets the client decision before Thursday's shared review window and moves the release one day. The revised plan needs 91 hours, including 42 focus hours. That leaves four usable hours overall and two focus hours; the small margin means the team should review the plan midweek.
The example does not prove that every 91-hour plan is safe. Check role bottlenecks, dependency order and the high end of effort ranges. If the only designer has 12 focus hours and design demand is 18, spare developer time cannot close that gap without a credible handoff.
Put it into practice. Apply the calculation to a real week in Altirya: start with tasks, owners and due dates, then decide what must move when the available hours do not fit.
When the plan does not fit
| Choice | Use when | Check before committing |
|---|---|---|
| Reduce scope | An output can move without losing the core result | Confirm the remaining acceptance criteria |
| Move the date or sequence | A scarce skill or approval is available later | Notify affected stakeholders and update dependencies |
| Reassign or split work | Another person has the skill and a suitable window | Include handoff and integration effort |
| Add capacity | The work can absorb help in time | Account for onboarding and cost |
| Accept a bounded risk | The owner understands the exposure | Name the trigger and fallback in a risk register |
Do not treat overtime or 100% utilisation as the default fix. The capacity number is a planning limit, not an individual productivity target.
A 15-minute weekly review
- Update absence, meetings, support duty and cross-project commitments.
- Compare completed effort with the previous estimate; revise the allowance if the gap repeats.
- Recalculate capacity by role and work type for the next two weeks.
- Identify the first task lacking a suitable window or decision.
- Record the scope, owner or date change and tell affected people.
Compare rough options over a longer period, then update the near-term calculation each week. In Altirya, start with the tasks due next week and their owners. Check each owner’s real availability, then move a task, change its scope or revise its date when the work does not fit. Record the decision so the team follows the same plan.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate project capacity for a hybrid team?
For each person and week, subtract planned absence, fixed meetings, support and other known work from declared availability. Reserve an allowance for normal uncertainty. Classify the remaining hours as focus, collaboration or flexible, then compare each category and required skill with task effort.
What is the difference between effort and duration?
Effort is active work, such as 12 person-hours. Duration is the elapsed time until the result is ready, such as four working days when an owner contributes three hours daily or waits for approval. More calendar time does not automatically reduce effort.
Should a team plan for 100% utilisation?
No. A plan that consumes every usable hour has no room for ordinary variation. Count known work explicitly and choose an uncertainty allowance from recent evidence. Treat capacity as a planning limit, not an individual performance target.
