Capacity Planning: The Intelligent Management Of Resources

Capacity planning is the most effective way to relate the necessities of an organization to the assets (human or material) it has. An arrangement of this kind is progressively fitting in a changing and requesting climate regarding adaptability and execution. What’s the outcome? More noteworthy proficiency, better expense improvement and groups seeing their responsibilities better disseminated.

Consequently, scope organization has become a significant issue for organizations, particularly those that manage many ventures. So the thing is scope organization? How might it be created in your organization? What are the genuine advantages? Every one of your inquiries is addressed in this aide.

Definition Of Capacity Planning

Capacity planning is about aligning a company’s resources and capacity planning with its needs.

Resources can fall into the category of:

1. human resources, i.e. the workforce available to carry out a project, for example,
2. Computing resources (memory capacity, memory, CPU, etc.) are present to support the various activities’ workload while maintaining the required level of technical performance.

Used in particular in data-driven organizations or organizations that manage a large number of projects (project portfolio ), capacity planning allows you to achieve a balance between:

1. overall strategy and corporate objectives,
2. and the means used to perform these same objectives, even in the most agile structures.

For this reason, capacity management is mainly entrusted to the Chief Information Officers (IT directors) and the project management team (responsible for project management ).

Within computer systems, the concept of capacity planning is often compared to that of capacity management. The latter controls a set of processes that aims to effectively standardize the good practices applied in the direction of information systems.

Benefits of capacity planning

Intelligent Planning Of The Necessary Business Resources

The main benefit of capacity planning is a better distribution of available resources to workloads.

This will allow priority projects to be completed within appropriate deadlines. At the same time, it will be possible to ensure the optimal continuity of a service or an IT system, even in periods of maximum activity.

Optimal Capacity Management

But capacity management does not only involve a quantitative approach: it also includes a qualitative approach.

Regarding human resources, capacity planning is calibrated based on each individual’s skills. Consequently:

1. You get a better insight into the competency framework available to the company,
2. These skills are valued: it is always a question of allocating the right resource, and therefore the right competence, to the right project.

Workload Anticipation

Capacity planning is perfect for anticipating periods of overload to predict the actions needed to ensure optimal business continuity.

Cost Planning

Capacity planning is an excellent tool for determining the budget allocated to a particular service or project at any given time. In this way, it is possible to optimize costs and thus make significant savings:

1. Analysis of periods of less productive activity, trying to avoid the loss of revenue due to the waste of human and IT resources;
2. Ensuring smooth continuity in an employee’s missions. The moment an assignment has been completed, the employee can immediately put his skills at the service of another project;
3. Anticipate high future costs, such as recruitment or material purchases.

Long-Term Strategic Vision

Thanks to its power of anticipation, this capacity planning work highlights different possible scenarios. All the necessary information on the planning and profitability of corporate resources can be collected. Executives will opt for the most strategic and performing decisions for their company.

Improved Employee Well-Being

Better forecasting of resource distribution also means organizing everyone’s workload as precisely as possible. This prevents your employees from finding themselves in deep water or, conversely, in a situation of dead calm. Furthermore, growth in professional skills and better visibility of possible developments are benefits that favor the retention of talent in the company.

How To Carry Out Capacity Planning

Phase 1: Evaluate The Company’s Resource Needs

The first step is to identify the current and future needs of the organization in terms of the following:

1. human skills,
2. computer resources,
3. Raw materials, etc.

This step requires a global view of the company’s strategy and operational alignment. However, you may need help: while some projects are already clearly planned, others are still at the stage of a simple idea!

For this reason, it is advisable:

1. work by project type (business development, organization, etc.) to get a more accurate view,
2. focus on internal company communication to more easily determine future employee needs.

Phase 2: Sizing Of Current And Future Resources

Capacity planning implies having a clear vision of the resources available in the company, both quantitatively and qualitatively.

In terms of human resources, this means:

1. The use of performance management, i.e. the preparation of a list of resources by competence. If you know the specific skills of each employee, it will be easier to identify missions calibrated for each member of a team;
2. examining the utilization capacity of each actual. For example, some resources may be assigned to recurring operational tasks and therefore are not assigned to a specific project;
3. identification of future resources. Is recruitment planned? Does the organization plan to establish training programs?

Phase 3: Create Capacity Planning

The goal of resource management is to assign the right resource to the right project at the right time.

Some bits of advice:

1. consider different possible scenarios to anticipate better how to behave in a given situation;
2. prioritize intelligently, such as placing the most resources at the start of a rush project;
3. use a visual aid, preferably an Excel spreadsheet

Phase 4: Prepare Any Corrections

Since the unexpected can always happen, capacity planning must be continuously updated.

Changing The Corporate Mindset

Ultimately, one of the significant challenges of capacity management is how teams assimilate these new processes. Calculating work times mathematically can generate a feeling of control that employees poorly perceive.

For this reason, good internal communication of capacity planning is essential, as well as actively listening to the needs of the teams. Only in this way can you truly see the benefits of capacity planning within your company, with teams delighted with the new organizational model.

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