I gathered recurring concerns and included capacity planning in a broader survey about improvements to our Smartsheet project templates.
Capacity planning · Ott marketing
Bringing meaningful capacity planning back to the team.
After an acquisition merged people and ways of working, raw task counts could no longer explain workload. I helped the team choose a shared sizing model and designed the Smartsheet system that will turn two-week sprint data into practical workload decisions.
- My contribution
- Team discovery, capacity model, system design, and automation
- Partners
- Anne-Laure Starling and Cristina Windsor, Marketing Directors
- Planning rhythm
- Two-week sprints
- Core tools
- Smartsheet, Claude, GitHub
The planning model
Replace task counts with a shared measure of effort.
S1 pointM2 pointsL3 points…seven levels
Example individual sprint
14 assignedof 20 available points
Three days away reduces a 20-point sprint to 14 available points.180collective points per sprint
2 weeksin each planning cycle
7task-size levels
3clear signals: under, at, over
01
The challenge
A task count was being mistaken for a workload.
The team had tracked capacity in earlier years, but the newer project system assigned neither hours nor points. After the acquisition brought new team members and different working methods together, workload could become badly skewed. Someone with 20 complex tasks might have more work than someone with 70 small ones.
The only dependable way to know whether someone was overloaded was to ask. That made it difficult to cap a sprint, plan the 2027 workload before new projects entered the system, or build evidence for future staffing decisions.
The constraintThe team did not want time sheets. But having no shared measure of effort was not working either.
02
The approach
Use the model the team could understand and trust.
The team compared hours, points, and size-based options. They unanimously preferred familiar small-to-large labels with points attached.
We set different sprint capacities for individual contributors, leaders, managers, and part-time team members instead of treating every role as identical.
Planned time away reduces a person’s available points for that sprint, keeping the comparison grounded in days actually available.
03
The system
Turn project-sheet inputs into visible planning choices.
Size the work where it already lives
Team members assign each task a size-and-point value in the project worksheet. No separate time-tracking process is required.
Compare assigned points with available capacity
A daily capacity log will show whether each person is under, at, or over the cap for the current sprint.
Make rebalancing actionable
The report and dashboard will help the team decide what to deprioritize, move, reassign, or clarify before overload becomes invisible.
Automate the aggregation
I use Claude to help translate the reporting logic into GitHub scripts that work around Smartsheet limitations and refresh the numbers daily.
04
The outcome
A shared model is in place; the data will make it smarter over time.
The team now has a capacity language it chose together: a seven-level size-and-point model, role-aware baselines, and adjustments for planned time away. As task sizing and daily automation roll out, the dashboard will give the team a live, per-person view and begin building the historical data it previously lacked.
- A collective 180-point sprint baseline
- Fairer capacity targets for different roles
- At-a-glance workload signals for rebalancing
- A foundation for planning and future staffing decisions
“If you confuse, you lose. The useful part is not simply a dashboard—it is a capacity model the team can use without friction and leadership can trust when planning the work.”
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