Free Agile Capacity Planning Templates | Smartsheet (2024)

Download Agile Capacity Planning Template

Microsoft Excel | Google Sheets

Use this Agile capacity planning template to prepare for future business growth and to ensure that skilled resources are available as your organization evolves. Track each employee role (e.g., product owner, business analyst, designer, developer, etc.) required for Agile projects or teams, including their name, status, start and end date, duration in days, and any related capacity planning comments. Use the unique Gantt chart accompanying this template to keep tabs on capacity planning and fulfillment by role.

Download Sample Agile Capacity Planning Template

Microsoft Excel | Google Sheets

Scrum masters and other Agile team members can take the guesswork out of capacity planning with this easy-to-use, pre-filled sample Agile capacity planning template. Agile team roles (e.g., project manager, software developer, scrum master, QA engineer, product manager, etc.) are pre-populated, and you can track each role’s fulfillment in a status column (e.g., Not Started, In Progress, Offer Made, Complete, etc.), making it clear to stakeholders where you are in the capacity planning process compared to your business’s resource requirements. Use the corresponding Gantt chart to visualize capacity planning for all of your Agile project- and team-capacity needs.

Download Agile Sprint Capacity Planning Template

Microsoft Excel | Google Sheets | Smartsheet

Plan sprints; prioritize epics, stories, tasks, and bug fixes in your backlog; and assign story points to items for upcoming sprints with this dynamic Agile sprint capacity planning template. Gauge release-by-release and sprint-by-sprint capacity with visually rich, auto-tallying totals for story points, points capacity, and points available. Use the report section to monitor available sprint capacity and the status for each task or story to ensure you deliver releases on time and to the satisfaction of all Agile team members and other stakeholders.

Download Agile Scrum Team Capacity Planning Template

Microsoft Excel | Google Sheets

Agile development team members and Scrum masters will find no better capacity planning tool than this visually rich Agile Scrum team capacity planning template. List each required resource and estimate the start and end dates as well as the duration for each, and track each role’s fulfillment capacity (Not Started, Complete, etc.). An accompanying Gantt chart displays start and end dates for each resource, as well as visuals for duration in days, providing the big-picture view of scrum capacity planning, execution, and delivery.

Download Agile Project Capacity Planning Template

Microsoft Excel | Google Sheets | Smartsheet

Use this Agile project capacity planning template as a single-source, project-by-project capacity planning tool. This two-part template includes project-by-project capacity planning for each existing or required resource and a Gantt bar chart visual to illustrate your project’s resource and capacity schedules, as well as fulfillment status (e.g., Offer Made, In Progress, On Hold, Complete, etc.). This template will help you account for the capacity details on team projects as requirements evolve and your business grows.

An Agile capacity planning template takes into account the Agile methodology’s unique practices of improving the effectiveness of development and delivery. Capacity planning must consider Agile-specific components — such as resources with Agile-friendly skills and the ability to develop in two- or four-week incremental sprints — for faster iterative development releases.

The Agile methodology’s primary principle is continual improvement. Thus, Agile capacity planning must help you ensure that resources are collaborative and self-organizing. Your Agile capacity plan must also possess an understanding of adaptive planning and the flexibility to adjust to sudden changes in development requirements.

Whereas resource planning involves managing and accounting for resources to complete a task or project, capacity planning requires precise forethought for a team’s or organization’s future requirements. Agile capacity planning also ensures the resources filling those roles have Agile-friendly skill sets to facilitate success as they continue to refine their Agile development practices.

A sprint capacity planning template accounts for Agile methodology sprints (most often, two- or four-week incremental development “timebox” periods) to maximize development efficiency and productivity.

By using a sprint capacity template, you can plan sprints by prioritizing epics, stories, tasks, and bug fixes; manage your backlog of to-do items; and assign — or weight — story points to development items for upcoming sprints. Compare sprint-by-sprint points tallies to the Agile team’s capacity to determine if they can take on more work prior to sprint’s end. Before starting a sprint, scrum masters or project managers can look at the quantified capacity hours, auto-tallied by an Agile sprint capacity planning template, to determine how many stories, tasks, or bug fixes each member — and the team as a whole — can accomplish for a successful sprint.

Read our sprint planning guide to learn more about this process.

A scrum capacity planning template helps project managers, product owners, Scrum masters, and their teams adhere to Agile development practices to deliver constantly improved products in short, iterative releases. Successfully plan, track, and manage Agile sprints with a scrum capacity template.

A Scrum capacity template uses the Agile methodology’s process of anticipating a project, a product, or an organization’s evolving business requirements, and ensures that resources with the required skills are available to meet an Agile project’s demands. To execute proactive development releases, you need an Agile-delivery method that accounts for your team’s or organization’s true Agile capacity and helps you effectively manage every epic, story, task, and bug fix in your pipeline. In contrast, a one-off resource-planning template focuses on how to most efficiently manage resources required to complete a task or project within Scrum.

An Agile capacity planning template enables you to modify your sprint and release process to fit development-delivery goals. Use a template with default text you can overwrite to guide you through capacity planning — from Agile sprint and release planning to post-mortem sprint and Agile-release retrospectives.

Successful capacity planning, using Agile development practices, provides instant insight into planning, timelines, and releases for your sprints, including progress made and sprint and release status. A well-managed Agile capacity planning template clearly shows which epics, user stories, items, and bug fixes need to be completed by sprint’s end, if they’re on track, if there are roadblocks, and whether the sprint deliverables or release is at potential risk.

Though Agile capacity planning templates may vary, they often include the following sections:

• Resource: Enter the Agile role you need to plan capacity for (e.g., product owner, developer, Scrum master).
• Name: Enter a name for the resource/role (if filled, or to be filled).
• Status: Enter a status for the Agile resource you’re looking to fill (e.g., complete, in progress, offer made, not started, etc.).
• Start Date: Enter the start date for the Agile resource needed (for sprint, release, etc.).
• End Date: Enter the end date for the Agile resource required (for sprint, release, etc.).
• Duration in Days: Enter the length of time the resource will be required.

Additionally, Agile capacity templates often include the following Agile release-by-release and status-and-planning details:

• Story Points: Enter how many Agile-planning points are necessary for the task or story (“weighted” and determined based on risk, complexity, and potential repetition).
• Points Capacity: Determine how many Agile-planning points the team has for each sprint or release.
• Points Available: Decide how many points are available for Agile team members to add more tasks, stories, or bug fixes for the sprint or release.
• Task or Story: Enter the name of the Agile task or user story.
• Sprint: Enter the number of the Agile sprint for which you’re planning capacity.
• Stage: Enter the stage (e.g., Blocked, In Progress, Testing, etc.) of the Agile epic, story, task, or bug fix.

By initially filling out these capacity planning sections in a template, you can be confident that as Scrums, sprints, and releases progress, you have a clear, unified method for tracking details and statuses of development deliverables.

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