Spot the bottleneck early
- Overload is flagged before the project gets stuck.
- The warning system reports deviations in three tiers.
- Time to redistribute instead of escalate.
Capacity planning: steer utilisation before the bottleneck.
Staffing per person, team and project sits in one view. Leave, sickness and contracted hours are already factored in, so you see the real free capacity, and bottlenecks surface while there is still room to steer.
Overview
Project management with built-in capacity planning.
If you want to manage client projects properly, you reach for a complete system of project management with built-in capacity planning. That way you plan not only time and budgets but the actual staffing for your projects. Keep your team's utilisation in view and bring your projects home with teamspace.
teamspace is ready for complex projects too. Plan your staffing ahead with capacity planning. That way you make sure every work package is delivered on time and no one is overloaded.
teamspace is ready for complex projects too. Plan your staffing ahead with capacity planning. That way you make sure every work package is delivered on time and no one is overloaded.
Everyday work
Still updating the spreadsheet every week?
- Utilisation lives in a spreadsheet that nobody truly keeps current.
- A bottleneck only shows up once the project is already stuck.
- Whoever is on leave still appears as available in the plan.
- An enquiry comes in and no one knows whether anyone has time left.
Capacity planning draws these answers from the data already sitting in teamspace.
Utilisation per week
See who is utilised how heavily.
One axis shows the people, the other the calendar weeks. Each cell is the planned utilisation, leave stays clear, and an overload is flagged at once.
The model
A capacity carries the allocation.
Capacity planning rests on two building blocks. The capacity is its own unit, tied to one project or shared by many. The allocation is a person's concrete plan on it, rough by the month and precise by the day, both in parallel.
Project link
On one project
1:1, fixed to the project
Shared by many
a support or sales pool
Capacity Entity
Portal relaunch
Period W27 – 39
Time budget 600 h
Status in planning
Allocation
parallelMonth · rough
Jul
120 h
Aug
80 h
Sep
120 h
Day · precise
Mon
·
Tue
8 h
Wed
·
Thu
·
Fri
·
One capacity, and on it a person's plan, rough by the month and precise by the day, optionally for the team first, then for the person.
By the day
A single day shows at once what is free.
In the day view the balance always sits behind the scene: how much time a person still has on that day, or whether they are over-booked. Put two work packages from different projects on one day, an hour each, plus half a day of leave, and you see at once that two hours are still free. The same entries aggregate up to the week or month view.
- Balance always visible: free or over-booked
- Work packages from different projects on one day
- Day, week or month, the same data
Why it matters
See bottlenecks before they hurt.
Even out utilisation
- Idle time and overload sit in one view.
- Work lands where capacity is free.
- Overtime stays the exception.
Hold delivery dates
- Work packages are staffed in good time.
- Availability is checked before the commitment.
- Less short-notice replanning.
Allocation assistant
The assistant only spreads free hours.
You set up a capacity with a period and an hour budget, and the allocation assistant spreads the hours across the days. Three distributions are on offer: start early, start late or even across the period. With the limit to free capacity option, leave, sickness and public holidays stay out automatically. A capacity can apply to a person, a team or a project.
- Spread early, late or evenly
- Only available days get planned
- Plan data movable and fixable by drag & drop
Availability
Leave and sickness flow in automatically.
How much time really remains depends on contracted hours, leave and sickness. This data sits in HR management and flows straight into the plan. So you plan against the real free capacity, not against the theoretical target hours. Whoever has three weeks of leave is held with reduced availability for that period, and no plan hours land on leave weeks.
- Contracted hours, leave and sickness accounted for
- No planning onto days of absence
- Data from the digital personnel file
Allocating
Plan by department, client or skill.
You decide which logic the staffing follows.
By department
Plan by your functional areas, say consulting, engineering or support.
By client
Where a team looks after fixed clients, assign the staff to match.
By skill
Technical, language and interpersonal skills are held per person on a scale from 0 to 9. You filter by the required skill and make the assignment yourself.
Case Study
In use at con|energy consult
Who is in? Who is on which project? How much capacity is still free? con|energy consult answers questions like these straight out of day-to-day work, with capacity planning.
„We plan which project each member of staff works on every day."
Usage types
Give guidance or reserve firmly.
Teams use the same capacity in very different ways. Sometimes it is a guideline: an hour frame a member of staff uses to plan a project themselves, along the lines of "you have the time, plan with it". Sometimes it is a firm reservation: you need a person on a particular day and block them, so everyone else sees it in the higher-level capacity planning. The distinction matters, because it decides how binding the plan is. And a capacity can also be set up for a purpose, say a sales capacity that several projects hang off and that holds someone to 50 hours of sales a month.
- Guideline: an hour frame to plan freely
- Reservation: a firm block, visible company-wide
- Purpose capacity: one pool for many projects
At a glance
Four levers of the plan.
Capacity planning is not a rigid grid; it adapts to your organisation.
- 3
spread modes: early, late, even
- 3
views: project, person, organisation
- 3
warning tiers: notice, warning, critical
- Day/week/month
analysis freely selectable
Analysis
Report deviations before they escalate.
Three analyses show utilisation from different angles: the staffing plan per person and week, the capacity analysis switchable between project, person and organisation, and the graphical staff utilisation with logged and planned time. Plus a warning system you set yourself. Where the staffing plan deviates from the time budget, it triggers a notice, a warning or a critical warning depending on the threshold.
- Staffing plan, capacity analysis, staff utilisation
- Thresholds as a fixed value or a percentage
- Check status per capacity at a glance
Intro call
Let's look at your staffing plan.
In around 20 minutes we work through your team structure, the skills on file and your utilisation. You get an honest first read on whether teamspace fits your planning.
Use cases
Around your projects.
Capacity planning is one building block. These use cases draw on the same project and staffing data.
Multi-project management
Steer several projects in parallel and surface resource conflicts.
Learn moreProject controlling
Plan vs actual, margin and forecast per project.
Learn moreWork breakdown structure
Phases, work packages and owners per project.
Learn moreEarned value analysis
Schedule and cost variance, plus the projected remaining work.
Learn moreProject billing
Logged hours become the invoice with the right rates.
Learn moreProject time tracking
Log hours on project, phase and work package.
Learn moreLooking ahead
Check quotes against capacity before you commit.
Alongside a period and an hour budget, a capacity carries a probability. So you can plan in work that is not yet ordered, for instance to see before a commitment whether someone with the right qualification is free. The capacity analysis shows the free and allocated capacity as well as the forecast revenue from the planned assignments.
- Period, time budget and probability per capacity
- Status from draft through to completed
- Forecast revenue in the capacity analysis
Part of project management
Capacity planning belongs to project management.
Orders become projects, work packages become staffing, logged hours become plan vs actual. The project management overview shows how the pieces fit together.
More on project managementCapacity planning for service firms
The spreadsheet becomes a living plan.
Capacity planning spreads the available resources, above all staff working time, across the work ahead. The aim is to deliver projects on time and to keep utilisation neither overstretched nor lying idle.
In practice this runs in three steps: first you gather the work ahead from the projects' work packages. Then you work out the available time from contracted hours minus leave, sickness and day-to-day work. Last you spread the tasks across the right people. teamspace already holds the data needed: working hours, absences and qualifications of the staff, plus work packages, budgets and effort estimates of the projects. Instead of maintaining a spreadsheet that is out of date by the next morning, you plan on a footing that refreshes with every entry.
In practice this runs in three steps: first you gather the work ahead from the projects' work packages. Then you work out the available time from contracted hours minus leave, sickness and day-to-day work. Last you spread the tasks across the right people. teamspace already holds the data needed: working hours, absences and qualifications of the staff, plus work packages, budgets and effort estimates of the projects. Instead of maintaining a spreadsheet that is out of date by the next morning, you plan on a footing that refreshes with every entry.
Related modules
Three modules dock straight onto the project.
Running projects almost always means dealing with the hour, the invoice and the order. Here are the shortest routes there.
Time tracking
Logged hours are the basis for utilisation, plan vs actual and billing.
- Log on project, phase or ticket
- Billable or internal kept apart
- Approvals stay traceable
Invoicing software
Completed project work becomes the invoice with the right rates.
- Partial, progress and final invoices
- ZUGFeRD and XRechnung
- Hand-off to DATEV
CRM software
The accepted quote becomes the project; order and customer file stay linked.
- Quote, order and project linked
- Customer file on the live project
- Shared data, no double upkeep
Frequently asked questions about capacity planning
What is capacity planning?
Capacity planning spreads the available resources, above all staff working time, across the work ahead. The aim is to deliver projects on time and to keep utilisation neither overstretched nor lying idle. In teamspace you plan staffing per person, team and project on the data that is already in the system.
How does operational capacity planning differ from strategic?
Operationally you spread the existing staff across the tasks ahead in the short term, on a horizon of a few days to a few months. Strategically it is the longer view, for instance whether to hire, upskill or push orders back. teamspace covers mainly the operational plan and supplies the utilisation figures that strategic decisions build on.
How does teamspace handle leave and sickness?
Leave, sickness and public holidays sit in HR management and are accounted for automatically. The 'limit to free capacity' option makes sure the allocation assistant does not plan these days. So you see the net available time rather than the theoretical target hours.
How does allocating by skill work?
Each person carries technical, language and interpersonal skills on a scale from 0 to 9. With free capacity you filter by the required skill and see who fits. You make the assignment yourself; teamspace does not assign automatically.
How does capacity planning differ from multi-project management?
Multi-project management spreads work across projects and people. Capacity planning looks from the other direction: how is each person and each team utilised given the planned work? Both views work with the same data.
Can staff see their own allocation?
Yes, through permissions. Per capacity you set whether someone only sees their own allocation, may move plan data, or may also edit a colleague's. Three access modes are on offer: unrestricted, restricted and private.
Can work that is not yet ordered be planned in?
Yes. Each capacity carries a period, a time budget and a probability. So you can plan in quotes too, for instance to check before a commitment whether someone with the right qualification is free. The capacity analysis shows free and allocated capacity as well as the forecast revenue from the planned assignments.
Where is capacity data stored?
All data is processed in certified data centres in Frankfurt am Main, exclusively within the EU. teamspace is made in Germany, hosted in an ISO 27001 certified data centre in Frankfurt and GDPR-compliant. The contracting party is 5 POINT AG, based in Darmstadt.
Capacity planning, talked through in 20 minutes.
We look together at your team structure, your skills and your utilisation, and tell you honestly whether teamspace fits your planning.