Capacity planning for small studios: people, skills and commitments

Check whether the studio can deliver before accepting more work

Capacity planning compares the people and skills available in a defined period with the work already promised and the work you might accept. For a small studio, the useful question is not “Are we busy?” but “Can the right person do these hours before the required handoff without displacing another commitment?”

Atlassian describes capacity planning in terms of workloads, availability and individual skill sets. Start with a shared weekly spreadsheet or document. Personal time blocking decides when someone works; this plan decides whether the studio has enough suitable capacity across all its projects. A free afternoon on one calendar cannot solve every specialist bottleneck.

Define available hours once, using a consistent convention

For each person, begin with their agreed working hours for the week. Deduct leave and holidays, non-project obligations and an explicit reserve for uncertainty. The result is allocatable project capacity. Do not assume everyone works a five-day, forty-hour week or expect unpaid overtime to close a gap.

Choose where coordination lives. In this example, general sales and studio administration reduce capacity, while project meetings, production, review and corrections are included in project demand. Subtracting project meetings from capacity and also including them in project estimates would count the same hours twice.

Reserve is not a universal percentage. Set it from the uncertainties you actually face, make it visible and review it. If you spend reserved hours on a new commitment, record that decision and the remaining protection. Do not also add an unexplained availability discount for the same uncertainty.

Worked example: three people, two existing projects

This fictional studio is planning one working week. All figures are person-hours, not calendar duration or billable hours. Maya handles visual design, Eli handles development, and Jo handles copywriting. Their skills are not interchangeable for the work listed. Project estimates include the coordination and checking required from each person.

Maya: 32 agreed hours minus 4 hours of leave, 6 hours of studio administration and 2 hours of reserve equals 20 allocatable hours. Project Atlas needs 12 design hours and Birch needs 6: 18 committed, leaving 2.

Eli: 40 agreed hours minus no leave, 8 hours of non-project work and 4 hours of reserve equals 28 allocatable hours. Atlas needs 10 development hours and Birch needs 14: 24 committed, leaving 4.

Jo: 24 agreed hours minus no leave, 4 hours of non-project work and 2 hours of reserve equals 18 allocatable hours. Atlas needs 8 copywriting hours and Birch needs 6: 14 committed, leaving 4.

Total allocatable capacity is 20 + 28 + 18 = 66 hours. Existing demand is 18 + 24 + 14 = 56 hours. The studio has 10 unassigned hours, but those hours consist of 2 design, 4 development and 4 copywriting hours. The separate 8 hours of reserve have already been deducted; they are not another 8 hours available to sell.

Test a new request against the bottleneck, not just the total

A proposed third project requires 6 design hours, 4 development hours and 2 copywriting hours in that same week. Its 12-hour demand exceeds total headroom by 2 hours, but the actual design shortfall is 4 hours: Maya has only 2 of the 6 needed. Jo would still have 2 hours free after writing the new copy.

One possible response is to obtain 4 confirmed hours from a suitably qualified external designer. Capacity would become 70 hours and total demand 68, leaving 2 unused copywriting hours. This works only if the external designer can do the particular work at the required time, any required client permission is in place, the cost is acceptable and any briefing or checking fits the named allocations. Extra supervision would require a revised estimate.

Alternatively, move part of the request to another week or agree a smaller output. Do not quietly shift existing promises. Even when weekly totals fit, check sequence: design needed on Monday cannot rely on capacity available only on Friday. Hours are necessary evidence of feasibility, not a complete schedule.

Keep skills and sales scenarios from inflating the plan

A person with both design and development skills has one pool of time. If they have 20 available hours, assigning 12 to design leaves at most 8 for development. Listing 20 hours in both skill columns creates imaginary capacity. Keep assignments attached to people, then summarize by skill.

Separate signed commitments, provisional bookings and unconfirmed opportunities. A probability-weighted sales pipeline may help longer-term planning, but half of a likely 20-hour project is not a deliverable ten-hour booking. Test the scenario in which the whole project lands, especially when several opportunities would need the same specialist.

Do not add a contractor to confirmed capacity based only on an old availability message. Record the booking period and confirmation. Likewise, a client review window consumes elapsed time but only the actual review-support effort assigned to your studio consumes its person-hours.

Copy this capacity record for each planning period

Use one row per person per week and separate assignment rows for each project. Keep the person-level total as the control, even if you also show skill totals. Update estimates of remaining work rather than repeatedly carrying the original full estimate forward.

1. Period and calendar: week starting [date]; working days and known closures [details].
2. Person and skills: [name]; suitable work [skills]; agreed hours [number].
3. Deductions: leave [hours]; non-project obligations [hours]; reserve [hours]; allocatable capacity [hours].
4. Assignments: project [name]; commitment status [confirmed/provisional]; required skill [skill]; remaining effort this week [hours]; needed by [date].
5. Reconciliation: total assigned [hours]; unassigned capacity [hours]; overload by person and skill [hours].
6. Decision: move, reduce, decline or add confirmed help [action]; owner [name]; decision due [date]; affected client promises [references].

Review the plan when commitments change

Review the next few weeks together at a cadence suited to your bookings, and revisit the plan when a start moves, a review slips or someone becomes unavailable. Delayed work may collide with a later commitment rather than simply disappear from this week. Keep that future collision visible.

Compare estimates with actual effort to improve future allocations, not to rank people by how full their calendars look. Full allocation is not proof of profitable work or sustainable delivery. The useful output is a concrete decision about what can be promised, who can deliver it and which constraint still needs resolving.