Transcript: Hello and welcome to our impactful projects and planning series. I'm Jami Yazdani, and in today's session, we'll talk about how to manage team capacity without burning people out. And so, a constant refrain I hear from leaders and managers and mission-driven organizations is that folks are at capacity. They are overextended. They have too many things pulling at them. This is something I also hear from team members that they are doing more work than their job was supposed to entail, and even more is always being asked of them, good work may be happening, but people are tired and many folks are burned out. I'm going to step up on my soapbox for a moment. Too often, the solutions for combating burnout focus on the individual, as if deep breathing, a better organized task list or regular massages could erase someone's burnout, but an individual's burnout is not separate from their environment; it's fed by it. So, to avoid burnout among our teams, we need to address the systems and approaches that drive it in the first place. One of the primary drivers of burnout is overwork, and that is something that we can try to mitigate by managing capacity. I believe managing capacity is one of the most important roles of a leader. When your team has clear direction on what work should be prioritized, and when that work is aligned with their ability and bandwidth, we not only avoid burnout, but we also make space for good work to create greater impact. But managing capacity isn't easy. At its heart, managing capacity well is about accountability. So leaders must take accountability for making decisions about what work needs to be done and the impacts of those decisions on their team and those they serve. Taking accountability may mean deciding that even great work isn't something we can take on at the moment. Managing capacity well is also about assigning accountability, determining who on our team can and should be responsible for the work. Managing capacity well is not about doing more with less. Often, it's about deciding to do less with less, or deciding to do better with less, or deciding to do more of what has greater impact and less of what doesn't. Again, this isn't easy, especially in nonprofits and other mission-driven organizations. Every no, every decision to focus on one program over another, or scale back or wait has an impact, but our impulse to keep pushing to go beyond our capacity also has an impact on our team and on how well they can show up to do the work over the long term, because managing capacity is also about sustainability. It's about asking what we can reasonably implement well. So not just is this work that needs to be done; it probably is. But is this work that we can actually do at a high level going forward? Okay. So how can we approach managing capacity? How can we as leaders take accountability for determining what our teams and our organization can sustain. It's helpful to think about capacity at three levels: at the strategic level, at planning, and at execution. So let's dive into each. So managing capacity begins at the strategic level. This is usually at the organizational level, but in larger or more siloed organizations, it could be at your department or division or team level. To manage capacity at the strategic level, we need to understand the work that is happening in our organization, so we need to understand the core programs and services that we offer. We also need to understand what operational work needs to happen, so things like HR, fundraising, and accounting. We also need to understand our goals and priorities, and these are often timely, meaning they may be tied to a three or five-year strategic plan, or to annual or quarterly planning, and we need to understand if there are other initiatives or other work that is happening in the organization. With that understanding of the work, the question that we're asking to manage capacity. Is how much time and energy are required to do this work well? To answer that question, we want to get very specific by mapping capacity. So there are programs and approaches to mapping capacity, but a very simple approach-something you could start today in a document or a spreadsheet is to list the work that's happening. Then consider how much of a priority that work is right now, and document who is involved. And for most of the work, there may be multiple people involved. For each person involved in a project, identify their role and how much time they are spending on this work. I've got a couple of examples here. We have a strategic plan initiative that's a high priority. A staff member is acting as the project lead, and we're estimating they'll spend about 10 hours a month for a key program. It's a core service that's a high priority. A staff member is the program lead, and about 50% of their time is typically spent on that work. We have a new project starting. It's more of a medium priority. A volunteer is involved, and they're contributing about two hours a week. Notice that we've also mapped some operational work like marketing. When mapping your capacity at the strategic level, this only works well if we consider all of the work happening. So sometimes folks will map capacity for new strategic priorities or new initiatives, but you really need to consider all of the work that's happening to have a complete understanding of your team's capacity. This also isn't something you only do once. So when we are mapping capacity, we want to do it for a certain time period, whether it's the next quarter, the next six months, the next year, the life of a strategic plan. Because our priorities change over time, this allows us to set priorities for that time period. It also makes our time estimates more accurate, as the time it takes to complete something can vary over quarters or months or years. And we do want to be consistent in how we make those time estimates. In the example I just gave, I showed a couple of different options: a percentage of staff members' time, hours per month, hours per week. But when you're mapping your own team's capacity, you want to pick one one of those one approach and be consistent about it. Mapping capacity at the strategic level enables us to use that understanding of the work and who is involved to make decisions about the work, and this is where we really begin to manage capacity. When we understand the work, we can make decisions about pursuing new projects and initiatives, about how our team's time is and should be spent, about whether we need more help or whether there is work that is no longer aligned with our goals and priorities. What we're going for is strategic alignment. I've talked about this in another one of these sessions, but strategic alignment is when our organization's work is aligned with our purpose, strategy, and resources. So the work we're doing furthers our mission and purpose. It supports our strategy and is a good use of our resources and capacity. And determining alignment starts with an assessment of the work that is happening and its use of our resources and capacity. So managing capacity well really does start at the strategic level, but we also want to manage capacity at the level of planning, so planning for new projects, planning for new initiatives, or planning for changes to operations or existing work, and planning for programs and services. But the reality for many of you listening is that managing capacity isn't happening at the strategic level, and you aren't in a position to impact that. In so many mission-driven organizations, no one has ever taken the time to map or manage capacity. If they have mapped capacity, every item may be listed as a high priority, which isn't all that helpful for decision making, or if someone has considered capacity, what you find is that everyone is at or over capacity. So, what do we do? If if capacity is mapped and being managed strategically, great. We still want to consider capacity during planning. If there isn't strategic management, then we really want to lean into it at the planning level when we are making plans for new work. So to manage capacity at the planning level, there are two things we want to do. First, we want to assess the feasibility of whatever we're planning. So is this work? Feasible given our capacity, and then we want to make sure that the plans we create are based in reality. A strong plan is never built around ideal conditions; it is built around the reality of our capacity. So, to assess project, initiative, program feasibility. I typically recommend folks take the time to really establish what the needs are for that work across a couple of different areas. People, so who needs to be involved? Effort. What effort or time is required to complete the activities of the work? Resources. Are there funding, equipment, as well as the timeline. How long will this take? And alignment. How well this work is aligned with our mission and strategy. And so we can document these needs to get a really clear understanding of whether the project is feasible. And this type of honest feasibility assessment is also a great starting point for thinking about the capacity required to do this work. And again, if you've thought about this more strategically, you can really see how this project or work will fit in with the other work that is already happening in your organization and by your team. An even simpler approach to assessing the feasibility of work is to ask these three questions. First, is this project or work feasible given our existing staff and resources? In other words, do we have the capacity to do it? If the answer is no, and we need to build that capacity in some way or obtain funding or resources, is that something that we can actually do? And if we already had that capacity and resources, is this the best way to use them within our organization? So, what we're trying to do at the planning level by considering feasibility is to think about capacity upfront. Is this something we have the capacity to do, and is this the best use of our capacity. Ideally, we make these decisions before work begins that will help us better use our team, our resources, and our capacity. The other thing we want to do at the planning level to better manage capacity is to ensure the plans we create are realistic. So we may have a very ambitious goal we're trying to achieve, but our plan should reflect what we can actually do given the time we have, with the people we have, and also given the resources that this work will use. As you consider capacity and create realistic plans, again, we want to consider all of the work. So sometimes when we're making plans for projects and initiatives, we focus on the larger elements of that work, but don't really think about the smaller pieces or tasks that might involve folks outside of the core project team. We want to make sure we're looking at all of the work required to do the project or initiative, as all of the work requires capacity. To create realistic plans, we can ask for input from the people who would be doing the work. So, do we have our time estimates right? Have we included everything that needs to be done? Do we have the right people? It's often hard for the planner to know everything, but we can ask for input. Finally, just assume everything will take longer than folks think it should, even when you've got input on it. If you think something will take a week or a month, give it longer than that. Most projects in the nonprofit sphere do take longer than we think they will, often up to 50% longer. As we create a realistic plan, what we often find is that we need to right size our initial plan to meet the capacity that we do have, which may mean extending the deadline. So, if folks are already at capacity, finishing the project in six months or a year may not be realistic. So, can we give people more time, thereby reducing the capacity that we need? Another option to right size is to add people to the work. So, are there other folks in the organization, volunteers, hiring staff, or consultants that will increase capacity and then allow you to achieve your desired timeline and goals. We can also reduce what we're delivering. So I know this is hard, but sometimes we can cut the number or size of the deliverables or narrow the scope of the project or initiative. This is one way to right size a plan to reality. We can also reduce engagement. So this is difficult to recommend because most nonprofits and mission-driven organizations really value broad stakeholder engagement. Yet engagement consumes capacity. Sometimes we can reduce capacity by gathering. Input from a smaller group of people, or shortening the timeline for providing input, reducing engagement is another way to right size a plan. Ideally, we understand the capacity available to us at the strategic level, so that we can create realistic plans for feasible projects at the planning level, but we also want to manage capacity at execution. So everything we've talked about so far is about managing capacity before the work begins, but we still want to be managing capacity while the work is happening. And so, if you're managing a team, there are a couple of things you can do to manage capacity during execution. So first, you want to make sure that you're regularly looking at schedules and capacity. We want to regularly review the work that's happening, what's coming up in people's schedules and people's availability to ensure that we aren't pushing them back capacity, past capacity, even if we had a great plan not to do so. The other thing we can do is set timely priorities. So as our team is doing tasks and activities, it can help if we set priorities across all of their work for the week or the month, providing clarity about what we really need people to focus on right now, we also want to create space for capacity discussions. So, do members of your team feel comfortable saying, "I'm feeling overwhelmed, or the next couple of days I'm going to be at or over capacity? We need to ensure our teams have that ongoing space for discussion so that we can address capacity issues as they are happening, there are a couple of questions we can ask to facilitate these capacity discussions with our team. I've covered this in more detail in a recent session on refocusing an overwhelmed team, but quickly we can ask and help our teams clarify what is the priority right now. So, giving folks permission to focus on high priority work, we can ask what can we let go of. So, this may be operational tasks, another project or program that we can set aside in this moment, so that we have the capacity to focus on the work that is a priority. We should also ask what will make us feel less overwhelmed. I mentioned overwork as a driver of burnout earlier in this session, but there are other drivers, including feeling a lack of control, lack of recognition. So, are there ways to help people feel more in control and ensure they receive recognition for their work. There also may be other ways to help our teams feel less overwhelmed. So at the execution level, what we're really trying to do is keep a continued focus on capacity. Okay, so that was a really quick discussion about managing capacity. We really want to make sure we're managing capacity at the strategic level, understanding all of the work that's happening across the organization and the capacity required, so that we can make better decisions about what work should continue and what should be a priority. We also want to make sure we're planning for what's feasible, but also we're creating plans that are realistic and aligned with our capacity. Then, at the execution level, we want to continue paying attention to and managing capacity while the work is happening. I mentioned strategic alignment earlier, so you might be interested in our strategic alignment assessment. You can use this simple tool to help you identify the work that's happening and see where programs, projects, and initiatives align with your purpose, strategy, and operations, and where they may need a reset. So this simple assessment is available at yasdaniconsulting.com resources. And if you're curious about how our approach to project management and planning helps mission-driven leaders bring clarity and calm to complex and uncertain work. Visit yazdaniconsulting.com approach to learn more. Great! So I'm happy to take any questions that you have about managing capacity. Do please add them in the comments. I'll give folks a few moments to add their questions. If I am not able to answer your question live, I'm happy to respond later in the comments. You can find all of the ways to contact me at yazdaniconsulting.com/contact. Please reach out to me if you'd like to talk about managing capacity. Okay, so I'm not seeing any questions. If someone's typing, I will answer answer later in the the comments or do reach out to me. We are at time, so do feel free to still comment and reach out with any questions that you have. So thank you for participating in our impactful projects and planning series. Visit yazdaniconsulting.com/ipp to find out about upcoming sessions and also to view recordings of past sessions in the series. Thank you.