What Is Sprint Capacity Planning?
Sprint capacity planning is the practice of calculating how much work your team can realistically complete in a sprint, accounting for availability, meetings, interruptions, and uncertainty. Unlike velocity (which looks backward), capacity planning looks forward to determine what's actually achievable given current constraints.
Factors Affecting Team Capacity
Paid Time Off (PTO)
15-20%Vacations, holidays, sick days, and personal time reduce available sprint hours.
Example: If 2 of 8 team members are out, you lose 25% capacity
Meetings & Ceremonies
20-30%Daily standups, sprint planning, retros, refinement, and 1-on-1s consume significant time.
Example: 10 hours/week in meetings = 25% of a 40-hour week
Context Switching
10-15%Production support, urgent bugs, and interruptions fragment focus time.
Example: On-call rotations can reduce individual capacity by 50%
Onboarding & Training
5-10%New team members, pair programming, code reviews, and knowledge sharing.
Example: A new hire might be 30% productive in their first sprint
Team Member Availability Chart
Alice
Sr Dev
Bob
Dev
Carol
Sr Dev
Dan
Dev
Eve
Junior
Team Total Sprint Capacity
Sprint Time Allocation
Development Time
23hActual coding, design, testing, and sprint work
Meetings & Ceremonies
12hStandups, planning, retros, refinement, 1-on-1s
PTO & Unavailability
5hVacations, holidays, sick days, personal time
Capacity vs Velocity: What's the Difference?
| Aspect | Capacity | Velocity |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | Available hours or days for sprint work | Story points completed in past sprints |
| When to use | Planning new teams or unusual sprints | Normal sprint planning with stable teams |
| Adjusts for | PTO, meetings, interruptions | Historical performance and complexity |
| Best practice | Calculate before committing to new work | Use rolling 3-sprint average as baseline |
Pro Tip: Use velocity as your baseline for stable teams, then adjust with capacity planning when you have unusual PTO, new team members, or major changes. Velocity tells you what you've done; capacity tells you what you can do.
How to Calculate Team Capacity Using Story Points
1. Calculate Total Hours
Team size × sprint days × hours per day
2. Subtract Non-Development Time
Remove PTO, meetings, ceremonies, interruptions
3. Apply Historical Velocity
Use average points per hour from past sprints
4. Add Uncertainty Buffer
Reduce by 15-20% for unknowns
Accounting for Uncertainty
Leave 20% Buffer
Only commit to 80% of calculated capacity to handle unknowns.
When to use:
New teams, complex domains, or volatile requirements
Example:
If capacity is 50 points, commit to 40 and leave 10 for surprises
Split Large Stories
Break anything over 8 points into smaller, more predictable pieces.
When to use:
Stories have high uncertainty or multiple unknowns
Example:
13-point story becomes three 3-5 point stories
Include Spike Stories
Allocate capacity for research and proof-of-concepts.
When to use:
New technology, unclear requirements, or architecture decisions
Example:
Reserve 5-8 points for a database migration spike
Track Interruption Rate
Measure unplanned work over 3 sprints and factor it in.
When to use:
Production support or frequent urgent requests
Example:
If 15% of last 3 sprints was bugs, reduce capacity by 15%
Sprint Loading: Committed vs Capacity
Healthy Sprint (80% Capacity)
45 points committed / 56 points capacity
✓ Room for unexpected work, bugs, and support
Risky Sprint (100% Capacity)
56 points committed / 56 points capacity
⚠️ No room for surprises, likely to miss commitment
Over-Committed Sprint (120% Capacity)
67 points committed / 56 points capacity
⛔ Team burnout risk, guaranteed incomplete work
✓ Key Takeaways
- 1Capacity planning accounts for PTO, meetings, and interruptions that reduce productive time
- 2Most teams lose 25-40% of sprint time to non-development activities
- 3Use velocity for stable teams, capacity planning for unusual sprints or new teams
- 4Always leave 15-20% buffer for unexpected work and uncertainty
- 5Aim for 80% capacity utilization to maintain sustainable pace and quality
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