Handle overallocation and workload balancing

The Capacity grid shows which teams and individuals are overallocated. Once identified, you can rebalance work.

Identify overallocated teams or people

1. Go to Capacity Planning
2. Look for:
   • Red text/cells — Person has >120% utilization (critical overallocation)
   • Resources needed badge (red) on a team — Team is short-staffed for that quarter

Red highlighting indicates the person has more assigned work than available capacity.

Understand what the grid shows

Each row shows a person’s utilization for each month in the quarter:

• Green — Healthy utilization with available capacity
• Red — Overallocated (>120% utilization); person cannot absorb this work
• Resources needed (red badge) — Team lacks enough capacity for assigned work

The grid displays utilization as a percentage, not individual hours.

Rebalance work

Once you identify overallocation, fix it by reassigning issues:

Step 1: Identify the overallocated person

1. In Capacity Planning, find the red-highlighted person
2. Note the month(s) they’re overallocated

Step 2: Reassign their work

1. Go to Board or Backlog
2. Filter or search for issues assigned to the overallocated person
3. Find issues in the overallocated quarter
4. Reassign to a team member with available capacity (check their green cells)
5. Click Save

Step 3: Verify the rebalance

1. Return to Capacity Planning
2. Click Refresh to see updated utilization
3. Confirm the previously red cells are now yellow or green

Other rebalancing approaches

Extend timeline

1. Move lower-priority issue due dates to a later quarter
2. This spreads work across more capacity
3. Return to Capacity Planning and refresh to see new utilization

Adjust team allocation

If a person is on multiple teams, you can reduce their allocation to one:

1. Go to Settings > Teams
2. Reduce the overallocated person’s % allocation to one team
3. Reassign their lower-priority work from that team
4. Their overall utilization will drop

Use Scenario Planning

If you need more capacity long-term:

1. Go to Scenario Planning
2. Model adding headcount
3. See how utilization improves
4. Use this data to pitch hiring to leadership

See Model hiring and headcount changes.

Preventive practices

Involve team leads in allocation decisions

Check Capacity Planning monthly

Keep most people at 80% utilization (leave 20% buffer for unplanned work)

Don’t push individuals into red (>120%)

Use capacity forecasts to guide project planning