The Team Capacity Estimator calculates usable team hours after time off, recurring overhead, and a safety reserve are deducted. It produces gross capacity, adjusted available hours, and an effective utilization percentage for a week or any period represented by the inputs.
Use it before committing to new work, assigning a backlog, or deciding whether spare capacity exists. It focuses on time supply only; it does not convert hours into output unless you pair it with task duration or throughput data.
1. Enter scheduled capacity
Set team size and normal hours per member for the period.
2. Subtract known absence
Enter vacation, leave, training, or other unavailable hours as a team total.
3. Apply operating overhead
Estimate the share consumed by meetings, administration, and support work.
4. Protect a reserve
Keep a percentage uncommitted for urgent work and uncertainty.
5. Use usable hours for commitments
Compare the result with proposed workload, not with gross paid hours.
The main result is the team time that can be safely committed after the entered deductions.
Time off is entered as a team total, while overhead and reserve are applied as percentages.
Given: 9 members at 40 hours each, 24 total hours of time off, 22% overhead, and a 10% reserve.
Calculation: Gross capacity = 9 × 40 = 360 hours. After time off = 360 − 24 = 336 hours. After overhead = 336 × 0.78 = 262.08 hours. Usable capacity = 262.08 × 0.90 = 235.872 hours.
Result: The team can commit about 235.9 hours.
Overhead represents expected recurring demands. Reserve is deliberately uncommitted capacity for variability or urgent work.
It is the total number of unavailable hours across the team during the selected period.
Available capacity is treated as zero rather than becoming negative.
Yes. Use monthly scheduled hours and monthly time-off totals, with percentages that reflect the same month.
Capacity estimates the supply of usable time. A workload calculator compares demand with that supply and may report overload.