What Exactly is Capacity Building? And Do We Need It?

I think about accordions a lot, but I don’t even know how to play. Why? Accordions are the image that I’ve been using for years to describe business capacity. I first used this image when I worked in operations for a residential mortgage business. We were looking for a way to add staff capacity when the number of loan applications grew exponentially and unexpectedly. Sometimes we could anticipate growth, but not always. However, we had the same issue when loan applications went down exponentially and unexpectedly. We needed to expand and deflate our capacity without breaking the bank (quite literally in this example).

The Great Reshuffling is making many of us rethink about capacity needs. The term “capacity building” gets thrown around quite a lot, but do we really know what it means? The easy definition is time, money, and resources. Capacity building is an investment in sustainability for a business. This can take shape in several ways: construction of a new office, increased budget for marketing, a new program that also brings revenue, or the addition of new employees.

From a people perspective, individual roles and teams shift constantly due to the ever-changing nature of work. New employees join a team and bring new experiences and skills to the group. An employee may deepen their knowledge through training that brings new understanding into their role. Leaders may transition and offer new communication practices and work management styles. The nature of the work changes as client perspectives and market opportunities shift.

Any of these changes may signal a need for a capacity assessment. A capacity assessment is a process that reviews the expected and unexpected changes in a position. The following areas of potential change may be assessed for each role and team:

·       Volume of work (Ex. Increase in clients)

·       Technology possibility (Ex. New technology could reduce paperwork)

·       Responsibility additions (Ex. Increased budget)

·       Staff transition (Ex. Open role takes months to fill)

·       Program changes (Ex. New programs added)

·       Environmental factors (Ex. Stay at home orders)

These categories can also be translated at the team and organization level. A capacity assessment determines desired capacities and assess existing capabilities, establishes capacity development priorities, and prioritizes capacity development interventions.

How do measure your internal capacity? Do you know when transitions are requiring more than your team can give? Maybe your organization needs a down swing to make critical adjustments. The accordion of capacity is always playing these days. Conducting a capacity assessment may be a helpful next step for growth and change.

Looking for more? Loftis Partners can help you with capacity building. Click here to find options.

Photo by Paweł Mizia on Unsplash