Capacity allocation is a practice used by Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to pre-allocate a percentage of their total capacity to specific types of work for an upcoming Program Increment (PI). This creates dedicated "buckets" for new business Features, Architectural Enablers, and maintenance/technical debt. The primary benefit of this approach is that it ensures a healthy balance of work. It prevents important but less immediately visible items, like architectural improvements or reducing technical debt, from being constantly deprioritized against urgent business features. By doing so, it avoids the need to directly compare and trade-off these fundamentally different types of value against one another during PI Planning.

A. It enables effective time-tracking

SAFe prioritizes value delivery and flow over detailed time-tracking. Capacity allocation is a forward-looking planning mechanism, not a tool for accounting for time spent.

C. It allocates developers and testers to an initiative

Capacity allocation applies to the ART's overall capacity for different types of work, not for assigning specific individuals or roles to initiatives. Teams remain cross-functional and pull work.

D. It ensures all Value Streams in the Portfolio are appropriately funded

Funding Value Streams is a strategic decision made at the Portfolio Level through Lean Portfolio Management (LPM), not a function of ART-level capacity allocation for a PI.

1. Scaled Agile, Inc. (2023). Agile Release Train. Scaled Agile Framework. Retrieved from https://www.scaledagileframework.com/agile-release-train/.

Reference Point: In the section "Balancing the ART Backlog with Capacity Allocation," the text explains, "To accommodate these different types of work, Product Management and System/Solution Architects and Engineering allocate a percentage of the overall train’s capacity to each type of activity for the upcoming PI." This supports the concept of creating separate buckets to avoid direct comparison.

2. Scaled Agile, Inc. (2023). Product Management. Scaled Agile Framework. Retrieved from https://www.scaledagileframework.com/product-management/.

Reference Point: Under the "Responsibilities of Product Management" heading, the sub-section "Balancing the backlog" states, "Product Management helps the ART balance the needs of stakeholders, providing capacity allocation for new features, enablers, and technical debt. This is a critical function; otherwise, the pressure for new and immediate business features almost always overrides the need for architecture, infrastructure, and maintenance." This directly confirms that capacity allocation prevents different work types from being unfairly compared and deprioritized.

3. Scaled Agile, Inc. (2023). Backlogs. Scaled Agile Framework. Retrieved from https://www.scaledagileframework.com/backlog/.

Reference Point: In the "ART and Solution Train Backlogs" section, it is noted, "To ensure progress in all areas, ARTs apply capacity allocation to the ART backlog. This practice helps balance the backlog with new business Features, Architectural and Business Enablers, and technical debt." This reinforces the benefit of balancing different work types rather than comparing them directly.