Sprint Capacity Planning: Committing to Achievable Work

Sprint capacity planning is like checking your team's fuel tank before a road trip—it's a reality check on how much work you can actually complete. During sprint planning, the team calculates its total available person-days, subtracting holidays and PTO. This number, the capacity, helps decide how many story points to pull in from the backlog. The common footgun is blindly using historical velocity. Capacity is the *actual* availability for *this specific sprint*, preventing the overcommitment and burnout that happens when you ignore reality.