The Weekly - Comfortable Capacity
On teaching for free, playing tetris and why you probably don't have a capacity problem.
Welcome to the Happy Medium newsletter, where I share inspiration and bite-sized musings on creative business each week(ish). Enjoy!
Quick thoughts
Musings on business, creativity, psychology and more.
You probably don’t have a capacity problem.
Recently I was handed a problem to solve and I think it’s a problem a lot of companies struggle with, no matter the size; resourcing and capacity.
This is how I approach this problem.
Let’s start with a little quick maths. Let’s say you have a team of 15 people, all working full time. Now let’s assume that 50% of the time they are working. The other 50% let’s leave free for coffee breaks, lunch, holidays, sick days etc (let’s not get bogged down in the detail).
So we have 50% of our 15 people’s hours that is for pure, on-track focused work. That is 285 hours each week. In a month that is 1,235 hours. A quarter is 3,705 hours, a year is 14,820 hours. That’s a lot of time!
Now how long does your average project take? Let’s say it’s 200 hours. That means in a year, you could do 74 projects with the team you have. And remember we are only looking at 50% of the hours they work, so we can safely assume we are avoiding burnout and factoring in time for a bit of experimentation or bumps in the road.
Now do the maths for your company, where do you land?
(Number of people x weekly hours) x 0.5 = Weekly Comfortable Capacity
Weekly Comfortable Capacity x 52 = Annual Comfortable Capacity
Average project hours / Annual Comfortable Capacity = Annual Project Capacity
If you’re not getting as much work completed as the calculation suggests then it’s time to look a little closer.
Many companies think they need more resources but 90% of the time, they actually need to use the resources they already have, better.
If you want to get more out of the time you already have, consider:
Process - a good process is clear, avoids rework and keeps things moving forward
Actively manage blockers - waiting on dependencies will chew up time in your pipeline. Proactively manage deliverables and feedback timeframes.
Use a scheduling software - managing a pipeline of work is mostly about Tetris, so use the tools that help you make decisions. (Asana is my go-to, Float is also good particularly for smaller studios, Notion is okay if you are already there, Monday is no good. Find your best option here.)
Stop work - this can be the hardest thing to do but don’t start work until deliverables/payment/whatever-you-need-to-do-your-job has been received. Be helpful and clear about this to clients up front. Sub in something that’s ready to go and avoid burning time.
Being able to get the most out of the resources you already have helps you to make informed assessments on important business decisions - when is it right to bring on more team members? Should we increase our pricing? What skillsets do we need on the team? Clarity is powerful.
Want to empower your team to be more efficient in a let’s-spend-our-money-and-time-on-things-we-care-about way (not a let’s-ruthlessly-milk-every-minute-for-maximum-$$-way) check out Problem Solving Mini.
Inspiration
Things that have inspired me this week.
You Are Training AI: Who Gets Paid for It?
Matteo Cellini
Sometimes if you sit on a draft long enough, someone will do you a favour and write a better version of the article you had in mind. This is something that I’ve been thinking about a lot since AI infused it’s way into our lives - the free labour that we are doing for these not-for-profit-turned-extremely-for-profit organisations. If you are not paying for the product, then you are the product. But with AI you are also the unpaid teacher!
Really great articulation of this problem with solutions for a more equitable system.
You Have More Time Than You Think — Here’s How I Found Mine
Polina
If you don’t know where your time is going, do a time audit for a week. Although I’m a little suspicious of the existence of a $60/week private chef, this article communicates the value of getting real data if you want to solve something. Our feelings about how long things take can be misleading (as anyone who has procrastinated a task that ended up taking 5 minutes can attest to).
That’s it for this week!
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Love this framing.
“Capacity” is often the story teams tell when they don’t yet have structural clarity.
The math is powerful because it removes emotion. It exposes the gap between perceived overload and actual throughput. That gap is usually where the real work is.
Most teams don’t need more people. They need fewer active priorities, clearer decision rights, tighter feedback loops, and the discipline to stop starting things.
Also, the “stop work” point is gold. Many organizations don’t have a capacity problem. They have a boundary problem.
Clarity reveals what is actually in the way.