Your team regularly finishes only about half of what it plans in a sprint. What do you do?

Summary

Plan from real capacity, not nominal capacity: subtract leave, support duty, meetings, reviews and an unplanned-work buffer based on data, plan to about 80% of what's left around a single sprint goal, and track planned vs done.

Longer Answer

Teams that plan 'people × days' typically have only around half of that available for planned work. Make support visible (the person on support takes no planned items), calculate capacity from the last few sprints, and commit to less. Reliable delivery rebuilds trust with product faster than ambitious plans that slip.

Key Points

• Real capacity from data
• Plan ~80%, one sprint goal
• Track planned vs done

Deep dive: Planning That Holds

What interviewers look for

Data-driven planning and the confidence to commit to less.

Red flags

• Pushing the team to work harder
• Blaming estimation accuracy alone