Capacity Planner
What Is It?
The Capacity Planner is the application that allows you to keep track of who is working on what and when (past, present, future). This is crucial to understand the workload of you team and take data-driven capacity decisions:
- Hire staff if you are over booked
- Let staff go or reassign if you are under booked
- Advance or postpone the start date of contracts and/or opportunities to adjust the workload
Key Concepts
Capacity
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Resourcing Requests
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Key Performance Indicators
The Capacity Manager has a key role in compiling Resourcing Requests in order to provide the following KPIs accurately to other stakeholders in your company.
Utilization
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Billability
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Using The Application
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Typical Workflow
Business Development Phase
- The Sales Team creates a budget for an opportunity using the Budget Builder.
- It sends the associated Resourcing Request (# Days / Role / Period tab) to the Capacity Manager.
- The Capacity Manager integrates that request into the Capacity Planner.
Project Execution Phase
- The Project Manager prepares the bi-monthly Project Report Out (PRO) and updates the resourcing forecast for his project.
- The Project Manager fill and sends the PRO.
- The Capacity Manager receives the updated project resourcing and updates the Capacity Planner accordingly.
Structure & Features
Settings
This allows you to configure the Capacity Planner.
| Column | Description |
| Allocation Types |
Different types work allocation that allow to categorize, at the highest level, what your staff is working on. By default Conduite suggest:
All allocation types are considered when computing Utilization but only billable allocation count towards your Billability. |
| Teams | The list of teams that make your organization and that have staff that is allocated to projects. This is useful to breakdown Utilization and Billability by team. |
| Roles |
The list of main roles that are needed on projects. Tip: We don't recommend using the full list of role from your Rates Card but instead focus on the main roles a project needs to be executed (regardless of seniority). Ex: Project Manager, Developer, Designer, Expert. |
| Probability |
The list of possible values for the probability of an allocation. The number of days of an allocation is weighted by its probability. The probability of allocations that are not opportunities should be 100%. Tip: Carefully choose the lower limit of the range in order not to introduce too much uncertainty in your capacity. |
Availability
This tab defines the general availability of staff members for project work per month. Each line represents a staff member.
Someone working full time (100% Full Time Equivalent) will have an availability of maximum ~20 days per months. If someone is on holidays his/her availability should be updated accordingly
| Column | Description |
| Staff | The name of the staff |
| Team | The team to which the staff belongs |
| Comments | Any information allowing to understand the availability of the staff. Ex: mention holidays. |
| Period | Columns that represent an period of 18 months for which the capacity is planned. |
⛑️ Adding A Staff
In order to add an expense for a role you simply need to:
- Insert a row where ever you want in the table (Right Click > Insert row above / below).
- Copy the formulas for the computed fields.
Validation conditions will be copied automatically.
Allocation
This allows contain all the work allocations for signed or internal contract / projects as well as opportunities that have a resourcing request and that have a high enough probability. There is one work allocation per person per contract / project.
| Column | Description |
| Allocation Type | The type of allocation |
| Contract / Project |
The name of the contract / project. Tip: Use a standard naming convention. For ex: <client name> | <project name>. |
| Probability |
The probability of the contract / project. The probability should be 100% for anything that is not an opportunity. |
| Staff | The name of the staff member. |
| Team |
The team of the staff member 💡Computed Field |
|
Role |
The role of the staff member of the project. |
|
Period |
The number of days allocated for a staff member per month (over 18 months). The column in yellow corresponds to the column of the current month. |
⛑️ Adding An Allocation
In order to add an allocation:
- Insert a row where ever you want in the table (Right Click > Insert row above / below).
- Copy the formulas for the computed fields.
Validation conditions will be copied automatically.
Remaining
This is not a read-only tab. Do not modify the configuration of the pivot table.
LoremMake ipsumsure that the table is up-to-date with the latest data from the Availability and Allocations tab: 🐙 Conduite > ⚙️ Update Capacity data.
This tab shows you a table summarizing the number of days remaining for each staff member per month. Here you can easily identify who is under or over booked.
If you click on the plus sign next to a staff member's name you can expand the row and see the detail of all allocations. Allocations appear as negative numbers.
The default cell coloring helps get a quick overview of the situation:
| Cell Color | Range |
| Green |
Remaining days between 0 and 3. The staff member has some open capacity. |
| Yellow |
Remaining days between 4 and 6. The staff member has open capacity. |
| Red |
Remaining days 7 or more. The staff member has a lot of open capacity. |
| Grey |
Remaining days < 0. The staff member is over booked. |
Utilization
This is a read-only (protected) tab. Do not modify it.
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BilabilityBillability
This is a read-only (protected) tab. Do not modify it.
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Normalized Data
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Configuration
This tab contains the ID of the Conduite configuration file and other computed configuration parameters.
ManagingUpdating The Capacity Planner
Updating Availability
Changing The Period Range
The period as defined this tab is the one that is used across the file. The header for the period columns is copied on the Allocation tab.