Team Capacity Calculator
Contracted hours are not available hours.
Work out Team Capacity. Contracted hours are not available hours. Names the misconception directly.
The share of remaining time that becomes productive work
Focused working time in the sprint
223 hours
55.6% of gross hours · about 56 points
Real utilisation is 56% of contracted hours, which is normal and routinely ignored in planning. Meetings, leave, interruptions, context switching and the ordinary overhead of working in an organisation all come out before any code is written. Planning against gross hours is why sprints are consistently over-committed — the arithmetic assumed a working week that does not exist. The focus factor is deliberately an input, because it should be measured from what the team actually achieves rather than assumed.
How the Team Capacity Calculator works
Available hours for a sprint after leave, meetings and a focus factor, with the story point capacity that implies. Planning against contracted hours is why sprints are consistently over-committed — the arithmetic assumed a working week that does not exist.
Also known as: team capacity · sprint capacity · capacity planning · focus factor · available hours · planning capacity · resource capacity · how many hours does the team have · utilisation rate
The working week nobody has
Five people at 40 hours over a two-week sprint is 400 hours on paper. Remove leave, remove meetings, apply a realistic focus factor, and 250 hours is a more honest figure — around 60% of the headline number.
None of the deductions are exotic. Meetings, code review, support, interruptions, context switching and the ordinary overhead of working in an organisation account for all of it, and they are entirely predictable.
Planning against the headline number is why sprints are consistently over-committed. The arithmetic assumed a working week that has never existed, and the shortfall gets attributed to the team rather than to the plan.
The focus factor should be measured, not assumed
The focus factor is the share of available time that becomes productive work on planned items. Sixty to eighty percent is the usual range, and where a specific team falls in it is knowable rather than guessable.
Measure it by comparing what was completed against what was theoretically available, over several sprints. An assumed 80% that is really 55% guarantees a missed sprint every sprint, and no amount of effort closes that gap.
It is an input here for exactly that reason. A calculator that hardcodes a focus factor is asserting something about a team it has never met, and the resulting number carries an authority it has not earned.
Why planning to 100% delivers less
A plan with no slack breaks on the first interruption, and interruptions are certain rather than possible. Once a sprint is behind, the response is usually to cut quality or defer testing, which creates work later.
Planning to around 80% of realistic capacity leaves room to absorb the ordinary. Teams that do it typically deliver more over a quarter than teams that commit fully every sprint and miss regularly.
Adding people does not fix a capacity shortfall quickly either. New members consume existing members' time while ramping, so capacity dips before it rises — which is the arithmetic behind the observation that adding people to a late project makes it later.
Where to go next
The Team Capacity question rarely arrives on its own. These are the ones that usually come with it:
- Sprint Velocity Calculator — A range is the honest form of a software estimate.
- Meeting Cost Calculator — The annual figure is the one nobody looks at.
- Technical Debt Calculator — Priced as interest, the argument becomes arithmetic.
- Ring Size Calculator — Finger measurement to US, UK, EU and Japanese sizes.
Frequently asked questions
How do I calculate sprint capacity?
People times sprint weeks times contracted hours, less leave and meetings, times a focus factor. The focus factor is what turns an available hour into a productive one.
What is a realistic focus factor?
Commonly 60 to 80%. It absorbs interruptions, context switching, code review, support and the ordinary overhead of working in an organisation, none of which appear on a calendar.
Should the focus factor be measured or assumed?
Measured, from what the team actually completed against what was theoretically available. It is an input here for exactly that reason — an assumed 80% that is really 55% guarantees a missed sprint.
How many hours is a story point?
There is no fixed conversion, and that is the point of story points. A rough hours-per-point figure derived from your own history is useful for capacity planning and should never become an official exchange rate.
Why do teams consistently over-commit?
Because planning starts from gross hours and the deductions happen afterwards, one interruption at a time. Making the deductions explicit before committing is the entire value of a capacity calculation.
Should capacity include on-call or support?
Explicitly, as a deduction rather than as an optimistic hope. A team carrying support duty has materially less capacity, and pretending otherwise makes every sprint a failure on paper.
How do I measure my team's real focus factor?
Compare points or items completed against the theoretically available hours over several sprints. The ratio is the focus factor, and it is usually lower than anyone estimated in advance.
Should capacity be planned to 100%?
No. A plan with no slack breaks on the first interruption, and interruptions are certain rather than possible. Planning to 80% of realistic capacity produces more delivered work, not less.
How do part-time team members affect capacity?
By less than their contracted fraction, because context switching costs are real and disproportionate. Someone at 50% across two projects typically delivers meaningfully under 50% on each.
Does adding people increase capacity proportionally?
Not in the short term. New members consume existing members' time while ramping, so capacity dips before it rises — which is why adding people to a late project makes it later.
Should support duty be modelled separately?
Yes, as an explicit deduction. A rotating on-call role removes a predictable share of capacity, and burying it in the focus factor makes the rota look free when it is not.
What is the point of capacity planning if estimates are wrong?
To make the deductions visible before committing rather than discovering them afterwards. It does not make estimates accurate; it stops the plan assuming a working week nobody has.
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