Plan capacity before saying yes to another project
Separate available hours from the hours you can actually sell.
Count usable delivery time. Translate projects into hours.
Count usable delivery time
Start with the people doing the work and their working hours in the period. Subtract known time away, then reserve time for administration, sales, training, and routine coordination. Treat the remaining amount as a planning assumption, not a guarantee that every hour will be productive.
Translate projects into hours
Estimate the remaining effort for each committed project. Use hours still needed, not the original estimate minus whatever you invoiced. Include project management and quality checks. Review dependencies separately: a team can have spare hours but still be blocked by an overdue approval.
Keep a visible buffer
Suppose two people each have 40 working hours per week. Reserving 25% for non-delivery work leaves 60 delivery hours. If committed projects need 54 hours, utilization is 90% of planned delivery capacity. Six spare hours provide little room for rework or surprise meetings.
Make a deliberate trade-off
When the next project does not fit, choose a later start, a smaller scope, or additional qualified capacity. Overtime may work for an isolated exception but should not silently become the assumption behind every quote. Record the decision so sales and delivery share the same promise.
Separate available time from useful scheduling space
Sixty delivery hours do not necessarily mean six interchangeable ten-hour blocks. One person may have a skill the other does not, or the work may require both people at the same time. A two-person task lasting three hours consumes six person-hours and a shared three-hour appointment. Track both when coordination matters.
A small team with 54 committed hours against 60 planned delivery hours has six uncommitted hours, but those may be scattered across days. A new job requiring one uninterrupted eight-hour session does not fit simply because some hours remain. Put deadlines, dependency dates, and specialist availability on the calendar before promising the start.
Use a weekly remaining-work estimate
Ask what still needs to be done, then estimate the remaining hours. Do not infer completion from the percentage already billed. If a project was estimated at 20 hours, has used 15, and still needs ten, the useful forecast is 25 total hours rather than the original 20. Update the schedule and the internal margin forecast together.
When a client is late with an input, decide whether to hold capacity or release the slot. Explain the consequence in advance and avoid silently promising the same time to two projects. Review your non-delivery reserve using several actual weeks; a percentage that looks efficient on paper can hide consistently unpaid administrative work.
Find the bottleneck hidden inside the total
Illustrative working example, not a reported client result.
Two people each have 40 working hours this week. After reserving 25% for administration and internal work, the team has 60 delivery hours. A new project needs 12 hours, and existing commitments total 46 hours, so the aggregate model appears to fit. But if the new work requires one specialist who already has 28 of their 30 delivery hours committed, the team still has a scheduling problem.
Run the capacity check at the level where work can actually be assigned. Separate specialist tasks from work either person can perform. Then check dependencies: twelve hours available on Friday cannot help a review that must happen on Tuesday. The aggregate calculator is a starting view, not a substitute for a dated schedule.
| Checkpoint | Working record |
|---|---|
| Total delivery capacity | 60 hours after the non-delivery reserve. |
| Existing commitments | 46 hours across the team. |
| New work | 12 hours, mostly requiring one specialist. |
| Decision | Reassign eligible work, change timing, or decline the proposed start date. |
An unused hour is not always interchangeable with another unused hour. Skills, tools, location, sequence, and client approval can all make the nominal capacity unavailable for the specific task.
How much reserve should I use?
Start with observed non-delivery time rather than a universal percentage. Compare planned and actual hours over several periods, then adjust for the work mix and uncertainty.
Use the related business calculator to test the numerical assumptions where applicable. Record nonfinancial decisions in your action plan.
Put the idea to work.
- Count usable delivery time.
- Translate projects into hours.
- Keep a visible buffer.
AI-assisted educational content. Examples are illustrative, not reported client results. Editorial standards.