Capacity Assessment
Do you have the right capacity in place to meet demand?
One challenge all teams have in common is how to ensure they have the right capacity in place to meet their demand. This is often complicated because:
Demand can change over time and correct capacity yesterday does not mean correct capacity tomorrow
Team capacity can be tied up managing preventable failure demand
Your team may have sufficient capacity overall, but the workload isn’t balanced effectively between the roles and people you have.
We were recently asked to assist a team who were struggling to meet current demand and, in the coming year, were set to receive an increase in expected demand. The Service Director wanted to understand what capacity the team would require for the year ahead if capacity-releasing improvements were made to their processes.
Our methodology
We started by identifying all the different processes completed by the team and captured how much working time is spent delivering each process (touch time), along with how often they are completed (volume and frequency). The combination of touch time and volume data allowed us to estimate how much capacity would be needed to fully deliver each process, and how many FTEs would be required for each role in the team if no changes were made to their processes.
To determine the scope for improvement, we captured the team’s problems and wastes against each process and calculated how much time could be saved if solutions were put in place to address the biggest capacity-draining issues. This information was then used to produce an estimate of the resource needed in the team if improvements were made.
With reliable data now available to inform the appropriate action, the team can move forward in the confidence they will have the right capacity in place to deal with the challenges ahead of them.
Any team, at any time, can find themselves in a similar position, completing a capacity assessment can provide reassurance and objective clarity during what can be a challenging time, and enable you to effectively resource your teams to deliver excellent services in a changing world.
“As a new starter in role as Head of Service, this capacity review of services, as carried by Ad Esse of our Planned Delivery team, could not have been better timed. I found the whole process brilliant from start to finish.
Both Rhiannon and Stoffer were extremely engaging and attentive – and have clearly done this many times before! Through the process there were timely comms and a huge churn of information attained and reviewed in a relatively short period of time. There was then also a very comprehensive final outputs report presented – with all findings very clearly relayed and discussed.
All in all and through this work with Ad Esse, as a Senior Management Team we can now pinpoint and focus/work to address the areas flagged to better align capacity with service delivery.
I highly recommend this service to anyone looking for an external expert to review the nuts, bolts and outputs of functions that they are responsible for and wanting to achieve better efficiencies.”– Asif Khan, Head of Asset Management at Notting Hill Genesis
