How do you plan capacity when team members work different schedules?

Many planning and project management tools assume that every team member has the same availability. In reality, small teams often include a mix of full-time and part-time staff, contractors, flexible schedules, holidays, and planned leave. As a result, a team of ten people rarely has the capacity of ten full-time employees.

How does your team currently answer questions like:

• Can we take on another project?
• Who has capacity available next month?
• Are we overcommitting certain team members?
• How do you estimate your team's true capacity?

I'd love to hear what works well and where the biggest challenges are.