Capacity Planner

# capacity-planner Sizing tool for **ops teams that handle queued work** — Support, CX, Customer Success, BizOps, IT ops, Finance ops. Built on Erlang-C queueing theory, Little's Law, and the operational-leadership canon (Fournier, Larson, Cleveland, Reinertsen). Deterministic, stdlib-only, no LLM calls. ## Purpose You are an ops leader sized 15 → 35 with no idea how the 35-person org will actually behave at peak load. Or you are at 88% utilization and SLA is starting to slip. Or you have a hiring budget approved and need to sequence it across four quarters without burning out the existing team. This skill answers those questions with arithmetic, not vibes. It produces three artifacts: 1. **Capacity sizing** at 70/80/90% utilization against P50/P90/P99 demand, with P(SLA breach) at each point and a SAFE/WATCH/AT_RISK/CRITICAL risk band. 2. **Utilization health** at the per-member traffic-light level plus a team verdict (HEALTHY/SQUEEZED/OVERLOADED/UNBALANCED). 3. **12-month quarterly hiring plan** accounting for ramp curves, attrition, QoQ demand growth, and span-of-control manager triggers. ## When to use - **Annual ops capacity planning** (October-November for the following fiscal year). - **Quarterly re-sizing** if demand changed >15% or attrition spiked. - **Pre-budget defense** — the math that justifies the headcount ask to your CFO. - **Diagnostic** when an ops team is missing SLA and you need to know whether it's a sizing problem, a process problem, or a bottleneck problem. - **M&A / new-segment launch** modeling — sizing a new team or combined org. ## Workflow 1. **Intake demand**. Pull P50/P90/P99 daily ticket/case volume from your work system (Zendesk, Intercom, JSM, ServiceNow, Salesforce). If you only have averages, stop and pull the distribution. Single- point demand estimates are the most expensive anti-pattern in ops. 2. **Model throughput**. Run `capacity_modeler.py` with your demand, AHT, SLA target, current FTE, and shrinkage. Use `--profile` for your function (support / cx / bizops / finance-ops / it-ops). Read the 80%-utilization row — that's your sizing point. 3. **Flag utilization risk**. Run `utilization_analyzer.py` against your current team's actual utilization data. Anyone >85% sustained is a throughput-collapse risk per Reinertsen. Spread >30 percentage points across team means UNBALANCED — fix that before hiring. 4. **Sequence hiring**. Run `hiring_sequencer.py` with current FTE, target EOY, ramp time, attrition, and growth. It will front-load hires (Q1 35%, Q4 15%), apply ramp curves, and trigger a manager hire when span of control crosses 7 ICs/manager. 5. **Walk the Forcing-question library** (see below). One question at a time. Do not skip ahead. Answers must be written down before you commit the plan. ## Scripts - `scripts/capacity_modeler.py` — Erlang-C sizing with shrinkage adjustment and P50/P90/P99 breach probabilities. `--profile` for industry defaults. - `scripts/utilization_analyzer.py` — per-member traffic-light + team-level health verdict with variance detection. - `scripts/hiring_sequencer.py` — 12-month quarterly plan with ramp, attrition, growth, max-hires-per-quarter constraint, and manager-trigger logic. All three accept `--input <path>` (JSON), `--output {markdown,json}`, `--sample` (built-in example), and `--help`. Stdlib only. ## Quick example ```bash # Emits an Erlang-C capacity model (required headcount + P50/P90/P99 breach probabilities) for the built-in example cd business-operations/skills/capacity-planner && python3 scripts/capacity_modeler.py --sample ``` ## References - `references/queueing_theory_canon.md` — Erlang, Little, Hopp & Spearman, Reinertsen, Kingman, Cleveland, ITIL, Armony et al. (8 sources). The math. - `references/ops_workforce_planning_canon.md` — Fournier, Larson, Google SRE Workbook, Frei, Lawler, Bersin, Gartner, Grove (8 sources). The people factors. - `references/capacity_anti_patterns.md` — 11 named anti-patterns with cited sources, tool guards, and the meta-discipline that Lencioni + Goldratt + Christensen impose. (8+ named sources.) ## Assets - `assets/capacity_brief_template.md` — 20-minute fill-out template with JSON skeletons for all three tools and an output checklist. ## Assumptions This skill assumes: - Work is **queued** (tickets, cases, work items) — not project-style. If your team's work isn't queued, this is the wrong skill. - Demand has a **stationary-enough distribution** within a quarter. Step-changes (new product launch, M&A, regulatory shift) require re-running mid-quarter. - You have **at least 90 days of historical demand data** to compute P50/P90/P99. If not, generate the distribution from your sales / user-base forecast first. - Service is **single-class** within a queue. If you have hard priority tiers (P1/P2/P3 with class-specific SLAs), model each as a separate queue and sum. - **Channels are modeled coherently.** Multi-channel teams use the appropriate `--profile` with built-in shrinkage premium. ## Anti-patterns See `references/capacity_anti_patterns.md` for the full taxonomy with sources. Top eight: 1. Plan-to-100%-utilization (Reinertsen Principle 12) 2. Treat-ramp-as-instant (Larson) 3. Ignore-attrition-in-12-month-plan (Bersin) 4. Hire-ICs-forever-with-no-manager-trigger (Fournier) 5. Size-to-P50-demand-only (Cleveland) 6. No-shrinkage-adjustment (Cleveland, SRE Workbook) 7. Single-channel-model-for-multi-channel-work (Gartner, Kingman) 8. No-surge-plan-for-P99-events (Hopp & Spearman, Reinertsen) ## Distinct from - **`c-level-advisor/vpe-advisor`** measures *engineering* throughput via DORA 4 metrics, story points, deployment frequency, and cycle time bottlenecks. It is for engineering teams shipping code. This skill is for ops teams handling tickets/cases. Different unit of work, different math (Erlang-C vs. DORA), different bottleneck (queueing-blind staffing vs. WIP + lead time). - **`c-level-advisor/chro-advisor`** does *strategic* workforce planning (1-5 year capability portfolios, talent supply, leadership succession). This skill does *operational* 0-12 month capacity sizing against demand. Per Lawler: conflating them gets you hired into the wrong jobs. - **`project-management/*`** tracks delivery throughput on projects (Jira velocity, sprint capacity). This skill sizes around steady- state queued work. - **Sibling `process-mapper`** *finds* the bottleneck. This skill *sizes the team around* a known bottleneck. Order of operations: process-mapper first → capacity-planner second. Hiring around the wrong constraint wastes the hires. - **`business-growth/cs-coverage`** (if it exists) sizes Customer Success coverage by ARR/CSM ratio and segment. This skill sizes by queued work volume (tickets, cases, escalations). For a CS team that handles both relationship work AND a ticket queue, run both. ## Forcing-question library (Matt Pocock grill discipline) **Discipline**: walk these one at a time. Do not skip ahead. Answers must be written down. If you can't answer one, that is your next investigation. ### Q1 — "What is your bottleneck, and have you confirmed it empirically?" **Recommended answer**: a named, measured stage in the workflow with queue-time data showing where work waits. Not a vibe. Not "escalations take too long". An actual measured queue. **Why it's the first question**: Goldratt (*The Goal*, 1984) — every system has exactly one binding constraint at a time. Sizing around the wrong constraint wastes hires entirely. If you do not know your bottleneck, run `process-mapper` BEFORE this skill. **Canon**: Eli Goldratt, *The Goal* (1984); Reinertsen, *Principles of Product Development Flow* (2009). ### Q2 — "What service trade-off are you accepting?" **Recommended answer**: a written, explicit choice — fast vs. empathetic, broad vs. deep, low-cost vs. high-quality. Frances Frei is unambiguous: you cannot win all four. The team that tries wins zero. **Why it matters**: AHT, SLA, and shrinkage inputs are the operational expression of this trade-off. If they don't agree (e.g., you set AHT for "empathy" but SLA for "speed"), the plan is internally inconsistent. **Canon**: Frances Frei & Anne Morriss, *Uncommon Service* (HBR Press, 2012). ### Q3 — "What's your demand P90, and what's the gap to your P99?" **Recommended answer**: two specific numbers from the last 90 days of data, with the calendar context of each (e.g., "P90 was 480 tickets/day on normal Tuesdays; P99 was 720 on the day after the November release"). A team sized to P50 misses SLA half the time. A team sized to P99 overstaffs by 30-50%. P90 is the right operating sizing point per Cleveland. **Canon**: Brad Cleveland, *Call Center Management on Fast Forward* (4th ed., 2019); A.K. Erlang, *The Theory of Probabilities and Telephone Conversations* (1909). ### Q4 — "At your planned utilization, what is P(SLA breach) at P90 and at P99?" **Recommended answer**: two probabilities, computed (not guessed) from Erlang-C with your specific N, AHT, and SLA target. If P(breach at P90) > 10% you are understaffed at the sizing point. If P(breach at P99) > 50% you have no surge plan and the next peak event will be visible to the CEO. **Canon**: Erlang (1909); Hopp & Spearman, *Factory Physics* (3rd ed., 2008), VUT equation. ### Q5 — "Have you budgeted replacement hires for the attrition you'll see this year?" **Recommended answer**: yes, with a specific number. At 30% annual attrition (Bersin BPO midpoint), a 20-FTE team loses ~6 people this year. If your "add 5 net" plan is actually a "hire 11" plan, the recruiting volume changes drastically. Anti-pattern #3. **Canon**: Bersin/Deloitte talent benchmarks (2015-2023); Edward Lawler, *Strategic Workforce Planning* (USC CEO, 2008). ### Q6 — "When does span of control trigger a manager hire, and who is the candidate?" **Recommended answer**: a specific quarter (from `hiring_sequencer.py`) and at least one identified candidate (internal lead or external hire). Past 7 ICs/manager, 1:1s degrade, feedback cycles slip, attrition climbs. Past 10 you have a coverage crisis. Hire the manager BEFORE crossing 10, not after. **Canon**: Camille Fournier, *The Manager's Path* (O'Reilly, 2017), ch. 5; Andy Grove, *High Output Management* (1983). ### Q7 — "What is your surge plan for the P99 day?" **Recommended answer**: an explicit, documented plan — overflow tier, BPO contracted capacity, on-call rotation, executive escalation tree, OR a written degradation contract that says "on P99 days we extend SLA to X minutes and notify customers proactively". If the answer is "we'll figure it out", the P99 day is a fire visible to the board. **Canon**: Hopp & Spearman, *Factory Physics* (2008); Reinertsen (2009) on capacity-margin discipline. --- **Walk these seven in order. One at a time. Write the answers down. The plan you submit is only as defensible as your answers to these seven questions.**