Scenario videos | Resources | Reporting | FAQ
Capacity Planning is the strategic process of determining the resources needed to meet current and future demands. It involves forecasting resource needs, monitoring utilization, and proactively making adjustments to maintain optimal performance and efficiency.
Capacity Planning: Open Office Hours
During these sessions, the team will answer any questions you have about the capacity planning process or about Planview, and provide an overview of the process and tools. Feel free to contact us at PPMO@wustl.edu to submit questions or topics of interest in advance, or to schedule a personalized demo for your team.
Sign up for a session:
- Monday, 7/21 @ 2-3 PM (session 1)
- Wednesday, 7/23 @ 12-1 PM (session 2)
- Tuesday, 7/29 @ 12-1 PM (session 3)
- Thursday, 7/31 @ 10-11 AM (session 4)
How does Capacity Planning benefit me?
- Ensures projects are properly staffed.
- Helps reduce risk factors and stay on schedule.
- Provides up-to-date information on resource availability, capacity, and usage.
- Enables well-informed decision-making.
- Facilitates plan modifications and effective resource allocation.
- Improves project success rates.
- Enhances forecasting and decision-making capabilities.
- Promotes improved collaboration among resource managers and teams.
- Helps allocate and forecast staff more efficiently.
- Minimizes over or under-utilization of resources.
- Better aligns resources to project priorities.
- Facilitates proactive decision-making.
- Enhances transparency into resource availability.
- Improves communication and collaboration with project managers.
- Leads to more effective team management and project success.
- Improves revenue forecasting for the finance team.
- Enhances financial control and budgeting.
- Ensures resource expenses align with organizational and project budgets.
- Assists with financial planning and decision-making.
- Offers real-time insights on labor expenses, resource utilization, and expected spending.
- Provides visibility into resource availability and project progress.
- Enables leadership to make strategic decisions.
- Helps prioritize initiatives and optimize resource allocation.
- Offers real-time information on capacity, utilization, and progress.
- Supports better resource management and informed decision-making.
- Aligns efforts with organizational objectives.
Capacity Reporting
Understanding the Impact on Your Role in WashU IT (Scenario videos)
These short, informative videos are designed to illustrate what capacity planning entails and how it can directly impact your role within WashU IT. Through various scenarios and real-life examples, we’ll explore how effective capacity management ensures optimal resource utilization, enhances project efficiency, and supports our goal of delivering exceptional services. Join us on this journey to better understand your part in maintaining a balanced and productive IT environment.
- In Episode 1, Eugene (PM), will be asking Dara (RM), to help identify available Project Resources for the time and duration needed.
- In Episode 2, Sarah (Comms Specialist), tells Dara (RM) that she is already fully allocated to another project. Dara investigates why she didn’t know about this, then contacts Eugene (PM) to make an alternative plan.
- In Episode 3, Dara (RM) and Eugene (PM) each conduct a review of the resources’ allocations vs. actuals and discusses that John (Comms Specialist) has been logging more hours than allocated. Dara investigates further during her and John’s one-on-one, then suggests that John keep a close watch on his Home Overview Dashboard in Planview and let her know as soon as he gets close to weekly capacity, to help mitigate future issues.
Check back soon for more episodes!
Learning Resources
Update Resource Allocations from the Resource Workbench in Planview PPM Pro (PDF)
Finding Demand for a Resource (PDF)
Planview for Project Management: New Project Setup – Add Staffing & Allocations (Workday Learning Course)
Adding Allocations to Projects and Service Ops Quick Guide (PDF)
Planview-New Project Setup-Staffing (Adding Resources) (PDF)
Updating a Resource (PDF)
Frequently Asked Questions
Capacity Planning is a business process that involves determining the resources needed to meet current and future demands. The goal is to ensure that an organization has the right resources available when they are needed to deliver products or services efficiently.
This is a required (value) field in Planview PPM Pro used to calculate the resource’s available capacity. It is often used to fine-tune resource planning and ensure more realistic scheduling and allocation.
The example below shows that this resource has 7.60 hours of available capacity to reach full capacity (32 hours per week, or 80% of 40 hours.)
Administrative Tasks Consideration:
Employees spend part of their day on essential administrative tasks such as meetings, management, training, and time off, which, on average, account for 20% of their time that does not directly contribute to project or service ops deliverables.
Capacity Adjustment:
Adjusting the resource capacity multiplier from 100% (40 hours) to 80% (32 hours) reinforces the goal of scheduling only 80% of the resources’ time for project or service ops work. This “sets aside” 20% for admin tasks and time off, including university holidays, which have been removed from the Planview schedules and are considered part of the 20% average.
This prevents overestimating work capacity, reduces workload predictions and risks of burnout, and ensures accurate forecasting and resource allocation.
32 hours is considered fully allocated and will show on the resource dashboard as 100%
- Up to 24 hours (75% of the 32-hour capacity) is an opportunity for allocation and is shown in blue.
- 24-32 hours (up to 100% of the 32-hour capacity) is within allocation capacity and is shown in green.
- 32-40 hours (up to 125% of the 32-hour capacity), using allotted admin time, is near maximum allocation and is shown in yellow.
- Above 40 hours is over maximum capacity and is shown in red.
If for any reason you are unable to access the content, please email ppmo@wustl.edu.
Benefits of Capacity Adjustment:
Scheduling resources for projects and service ops 32 hours per week ensures that projects and operations are adequately staffed and have reasonable deadlines. It also increases confidence in project timelines and resource utilization, leading to successful outcomes.
Value for Different Stakeholders:
- Resource Managers: Optimizes resource utilization, balances workloads, ensures timely delivery, prevents allocation issues, aligns availability with business goals, and improves efficiency and decision-making.
- Project and Program Managers: Ensures proper staffing, avoids delays, meets deadlines, prioritizes tasks, manages risks, aligns project goals with business objectives, and enhances team productivity and project success.
- Resource and Project Managers collaboration: Aligns resource availability with project needs, ensuring the right resources are allocated to tasks, balancing workloads, addressing gaps, and adjusting plans to meet deadlines and objectives.
- Finance Team: Supports accurate budgeting, cost forecasting, efficient resource allocation, avoids overspending, aligns costs with financial targets, and improves cost management and financial planning.
Allocation is the amount of work assigned to a worker on a per-project basis. The target for full allocation is 32 hours per week.
Capacity is the total number of hours a worker is paid to work. This is typically 40 hours per week, although it may vary for part-time and contract workers.
This Conversion Chart lists .25-hour increments with the corresponding percentage and decimal conversions.
If you need to calculate project or service ops work hours for a month: multiply 6.4 (80% of 8 hours) times the number of working days in the month.
Heatmap Guide:
– Up to 24 hours (75% of the 32-hour capacity) is an opportunity for allocation and is shown in shades of blue.
– 24-32 hours (up to 100% of the 32-hour capacity) is within allocation capacity and is shown in shades of green.
– 32-40 hours (up to 125% of the 32-hour capacity), using allotted admin time, is near maximum allocation and is shown in shades of yellow.
– Above 40 hours is over maximum capacity and is shown in shades of red.
If for any reason you are unable to access the content, please email ppmo@wustl.edu.
From the Home screen, select Resources from the sections menu, then change the view to hours using the gear icon in the upper right. Select Hours under Allocation Units and then OK.
The resource workbench calculates on 32-hour project capacity (80% multiplier). The top half will always show in percentages, but the bottom half will show either headcount (percentage) or hours based on your selection.
Once you have identified the hours, use this conversion chart to find the equivalent percentage (if needed).
Visit the eLearning (may require WUSTL log in)
Review the Quick Guide (PDF).
Additionally, you may use the Resource Workbench to access your team by selecting Resources from the left Sections menu, then use the ellipsis (three vertical dots) next to the filter field to view your resources.
In the upper portion of the window, hover over a cell to see what has been allocated and the available capacity for that period. Use the gear icon to toggle between Hours and Headcount (percentage) as well as time-periods (weekly, monthly, quarterly). In the Lower portion of the window, double-click in a cell to edit it then select Save. Use the interval drop-down to view the lower portion of the window in weekly, monthly or quarterly.
Visit the eLearning (may require WUSTL log in)
Review the Quick Guide (PDF).
Never delete a resource! We need the data connected to that resource.
Watch a quick video on how to add an end-date, or remove a resource from a project (may require WUSTL log in.)
Visit the eLearning (may require WUSTL log in.)
Review the Quick Guide (PDF).
Watch a quick video on how to add an end-date, or remove a resource from a project (may require WUSTL log in.)
Visit the eLearning (may require WUSTL log in.)
Review the Quick Guide (PDF).