Increment Scheduling
Increment Scheduling provides a planning tool for building project and increment plans. Use this page to schedule stories, backlog items, and portfolio items into projects or increments, and to visualize workload distribution across your organization.
Permission requirement: Viewing increment schedules requires read access to projects, increments, and teams. Scheduling work items requires modify permissions on the items and target projects. Setting capacity targets requires Project Admin or Portfolio Manager role.
Who Uses Increment Scheduling
Increment scheduling supports multi-level planning:
- Program Managers coordinate scheduling across multiple product lines and teams, using capacity visualizations to balance workload and prevent overcommitment.
- Product Owners schedule stories and backlog items into increments, drag items between teams based on capacity, and set increment objectives.
- Scrum Masters view team-level capacity indicators to ensure realistic sprint commitments and identify underutilized teams for work rebalancing.
- Portfolio Managers schedule portfolio items at strategic level, automatically cascading work to lower-level projects and teams.
Access Increment Scheduling
Click the hamburger menu 
> Increment > Increment Scheduling.
Result: The Increment Scheduling page opens, displaying your project hierarchy with progress bars showing capacity and workload for each project or increment.
Use Increment Scheduling
Increment Scheduling supports organizations where backlog is defined at the top of a multi-level project hierarchy. This page allows you to push backlog through successive layers to project teams and time frames at the lowest level where work is completed.
Key capabilities:
- Schedule work items: Drag and drop stories, backlog items, and portfolio items into projects or increments
- View capacity: Monitor capacity targets and actual workload through visual progress bars
- Track progress: See how much work is complete and how much remains
- Manage teams: Assign work to teams and view team-level capacity
- Set objectives: Define backlog goals or objectives to focus development efforts
Available Reports
Access these reports from the Increment Scheduling page:
- Increment Burndown: Track work completion over time
- Estimate Trend: Monitor estimate changes throughout the increment
- Dependencies: View dependencies between work items
- Portfolio Item Dependencies: See dependencies at the portfolio level
Use Cases
Multi-Level Program Increment Planning with Capacity Visualization
A program manager schedules 180 stories across 12 teams for a 5-sprint program increment. They use Increment Scheduling to view capacity at program, product line, and team levels. Progress bars show Customer Portal Team A is 120% overcommitted (red) while API Platform Team C is 75% utilized (green). They drag 25 points of work from the overcommitted team to the underutilized team, rebalancing both to healthy 95-100% utilization. The visual capacity indicators enable quick identification of bottlenecks and informed rebalancing decisions across the organization.
Component Team Shared Across Projects
A Platform Engineering team supports 4 product teams simultaneously. Increment Scheduling shows their work allocated across multiple projects: 25 points from Customer Portal, 20 from Mobile App, 15 from Admin Console, and 30 from Reporting Engine, totaling 90 points against 80-point capacity (113% overcommitted). The team meets with product owners to prioritize work, deferring 10 points of lower-priority Reporting work to the next increment. The progress bar updates to 100% utilization (green), and stakeholders understand the shared resource constraint.
Mid-Increment Capacity Adjustment
During Sprint 3 of a 5-sprint increment, two team members leave unexpectedly. The scrum master uses Increment Scheduling to assess impact: remaining capacity for Sprints 4-5 drops from 200 points to 160 points (40-point gap). They identify 50 points of nice-to-have work, drag it from the current increment to the next increment, and adjust the sprint plan to 160 points matching reduced capacity. Critical work continues on schedule, stakeholders are informed proactively, and the team delivers successfully despite the change.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between Increment Scheduling and Sprint Scheduling?
Increment Scheduling operates at program/project level for long-term planning (8-12 weeks). Use it to allocate work across multiple teams and projects, balance capacity at program level, and visualize multi-level project hierarchy. Program managers and portfolio managers use this for scheduling features and epics across teams for full increments.
Sprint Scheduling operates at team level for short-term planning (1-2 weeks). Use it to plan a single team's work for an upcoming sprint, break stories into tasks, and assign work to team members. Scrum masters and team members use this for detailed sprint execution planning.
Data flows from Increment Scheduling (strategic: schedule Feature X to Team A) down to Sprint Scheduling (tactical: Team A breaks Feature X into stories across sprints).
How do I handle teams that are overcommitted according to the progress bars?
Progress bars show capacity with color coding: Green (0-100%), Yellow (101-110%), Red (>110%). For overcommitted teams (red bars >110%):
Option 1 - Descope work: Meet with product owner to identify lowest-priority work and move it to the next increment or backlog.
Option 2 - Move work to underutilized teams: Find teams with green bars under 95% capacity and drag work to those teams if skills match.
Option 3 - Add capacity: Bring in contractors or borrow team members (note: new members reduce velocity initially during ramp-up).
Option 4 - Extend timeline: Add additional sprints to the increment to spread work over more time.
Target 95-100% capacity utilization (green). Use historical velocity as capacity targets, not aspirational velocity. Build in 10% buffer for unexpected work. Teams consistently showing red bars indicate planning dysfunction requiring process review.
Can I use Increment Scheduling without formal increments?
Yes, treat "Increments" as time-boxed planning horizons (quarters, 6-sprint periods, or calendar months). Create an increment representing your planning period and schedule work into that timeframe. This provides capacity planning and workload visualization across teams even without formal increment ceremonies. The tool adapts to sprint-only teams, Kanban flow teams, or any planning structure needing multi-team capacity visibility.
Can I use Increment Scheduling with Kanban teams?
Yes, schedule work into monthly or quarterly buckets where capacity represents monthly throughput (average stories completed per month) and progress bars show WIP limits and current load. This helps with monthly throughput planning and visualizing story distribution across Kanban teams.
How do I use Increment Scheduling with mixed team methodologies?
Increment Scheduling supports hybrid environments where teams use different methodologies (SAFe, Scrum, Kanban). Create organizational planning horizons that work for all teams: SAFe teams map to Program Increments, Scrum teams to sprint groupings or quarters, and Kanban teams to monthly buckets. All teams appear on the same page with shared timeline and visual capacity indicators.
What do progress bar colors mean?
Progress bars use color coding to indicate capacity health. Green (0-100%) means the team is at or below capacity, with 90-100% being the optimal target range. Yellow (101-110%) indicates slight overcommitment requiring monitoring. Red (>110%) signals significant overcommitment requiring immediate action to descope work, move items to underutilized teams, or add capacity. Target 95% capacity (green) to provide buffer for unexpected work and maintain team morale.
Troubleshooting
Why can't I drag work items into an increment?
Verify you have modify permissions on the work items and the target increment. Work items with closed status cannot be moved. If items are portfolio-level items with children, you may need to expand the hierarchy to drag specific child items instead of the parent. Check that the increment is not locked or archived.
Why don't capacity progress bars appear for my projects or teams?
Capacity progress bars require Target Velocity or capacity targets to be configured for projects, increments, or teams. Without capacity targets, the system cannot calculate percentage utilized. Navigate to project or team settings and define capacity values in the appropriate units (story points, hours, etc.).
Why do some work items not appear in the Unscheduled Backlog?
Work items must meet specific criteria to appear in Unscheduled Backlog: they must not be assigned to an increment, must have open status, and must exist at the appropriate hierarchy level for the view you're in. Work items owned by projects that don't match your current filter settings also won't appear. Use Advanced Search to locate specific items if they're not visible.
How do I undo scheduling changes if I drag items to the wrong increment?
Drag the work items from the incorrect increment back to the Unscheduled Backlog section, or drag them directly to the correct increment. Changes save automatically, but you can move items freely between increments until they're closed. For bulk changes, use the grid view Edit Multiple feature to reassign many items at once.
Related Topics
Managing Projects or Increments
Managing Stories Backlog Items
Understanding Increment Scheduling Progress Bars
Sprint or Iteration Scheduling