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Operations Capacity Plan

Plan resource capacity — workload analysis and utilization forecasting. Use when heading into quarterly planning, the team feels overallocated and you need the numbers, deciding whether to hire or deprioritize, or stress-testing whether upcoming projects fit the people you have.

by @anthropics · Apache 2.0 New

What this skill does

Get an analysis of your team's workload to forecast whether you have enough capacity for upcoming projects without burning out. You'll receive a clear breakdown of booked time versus available hours, recommending whether to hire help or delay work to meet deadlines. Reach for this during quarterly planning or whenever you need hard numbers to make confident staffing decisions.

Anthropic · Productivity
view on github ↗

name: capacity-plan description: Plan resource capacity — workload analysis and utilization forecasting. Use when heading into quarterly planning, the team feels overallocated and you need the numbers, deciding whether to hire or deprioritize, or stress-testing whether upcoming projects fit the people you have. argument-hint: ""

/capacity-plan

If you see unfamiliar placeholders or need to check which tools are connected, see CONNECTORS.md.

Analyze team capacity and plan resource allocation.

Usage

/capacity-plan $ARGUMENTS

What I Need From You

  • Team size and roles: Who do you have?
  • Current workload: What are they working on? (Upload from project tracker or describe)
  • Upcoming work: What’s coming next quarter?
  • Constraints: Budget, hiring timeline, skill requirements

Planning Dimensions

People

  • Available headcount and skills
  • Current allocation and utilization
  • Planned hires and timeline
  • Contractor and vendor capacity

Budget

  • Operating budget by category
  • Project-specific budgets
  • Variance tracking
  • Forecast vs. actual

Time

  • Project timelines and dependencies
  • Critical path analysis
  • Buffer and contingency planning
  • Deadline management

Utilization Targets

Role TypeTarget UtilizationNotes
IC / Specialist75-80%Leave room for reactive work and growth
Manager60-70%Management overhead, meetings, 1:1s
On-call / Support50-60%Interrupt-driven work is unpredictable

Common Pitfalls

  • Planning to 100% utilization (no buffer for surprises)
  • Ignoring meeting load and context-switching costs
  • Not accounting for vacation, holidays, and sick time
  • Treating all hours as equal (creative work ≠ admin work)

Output

## Capacity Plan: [Team/Project]
**Period:** [Date range] | **Team Size:** [X]

### Current Utilization
| Person/Role | Capacity | Allocated | Available | Utilization |
|-------------|----------|-----------|-----------|-------------|
| [Name/Role] | [hrs/wk] | [hrs/wk] | [hrs/wk] | [X]% |

### Capacity Summary
- **Total capacity**: [X] hours/week
- **Currently allocated**: [X] hours/week ([X]%)
- **Available**: [X] hours/week ([X]%)
- **Overallocated**: [X people above 100%]

### Upcoming Demand
| Project/Initiative | Start | End | Resources Needed | Gap |
|--------------------|-------|-----|-----------------|-----|
| [Project] | [Date] | [Date] | [X FTEs] | [Covered/Gap] |

### Bottlenecks
- [Skill or role that's oversubscribed]
- [Time period with a crunch]

### Recommendations
1. [Hire / Contract / Reprioritize / Delay]
2. [Specific action]

### Scenarios
| Scenario | Outcome |
|----------|---------|
| Do nothing | [What happens] |
| Hire [X] | [What changes] |
| Deprioritize [Y] | [What frees up] |

If Connectors Available

If ~~project tracker is connected:

  • Pull current workload and ticket assignments automatically
  • Show upcoming sprint or quarter commitments per person

If ~~calendar is connected:

  • Factor in PTO, holidays, and recurring meeting load
  • Calculate actual available hours per person

Tips

  1. Include all work — BAU, projects, support, meetings. People aren’t 100% available for project work.
  2. Plan for buffer — Target 80% utilization. 100% means no room for surprises.
  3. Update regularly — Capacity plans go stale fast. Review monthly.

Install this Skill

Skills give your AI agent a consistent, structured approach to this task — better output than a one-off prompt.

npx skills add anthropics/knowledge-work-plugins --skill operations
Download ZIP

Official Anthropic skill. Need a walkthrough? See the install guide →

Works with

No terminal needed — Claude.ai works by pasting the skill into custom instructions.

Details

License
Apache 2.0
Source file
show path operations/skills/capacity-plan/SKILL.md
operations capacity-plan knowledge-work-plugin