Capacity Planning

(OBJ 3.4)

Capacity Planning

• Critical strategic planning effort for organizations
• Ensures an organization is prepared to meet future demands in a cost-effective manner
  • Long-term continuity of operations

Four Main Aspects of Capacity Planning

• People
  • Analyze current personnel skills and capacity
  • Forecast future personnel needs for hiring, training, or downsizing
  • Ensure the right number of people with the right skills for strategic objectives
  • Example
    • Hiring seasonal employees for holiday retail demand
    • When demand decreases, these seasonal positions will be off-boarded
• Technology
  • Assess current technology resources and their usage
  • Predict future technology demands that might be placed upon your organization
  • Consider scalability and potential investments in new technology
    • Evaluate if current technology can accommodate future growth or if additional/new solutions are required for the expected demand
  • Example
    • Ensuring an e-commerce platform can handle traffic spikes
    • You could be losing out on potential sales because your servers can't handle the excess capability.
• Infrastructure
  • Plan for physical spaces and utilities to support operations
  • Includes office spaces, data centers, and more
  • Optimize space and power consumption
  • Example
    • Data center capacity planning for server installations
    • Consider room available for rack mounted servers.
    • Also take into account heat generated.
    • Save space by using cloud solutions for some services.
• Processes
  • Optimize business processes for varying demand levels
  • Streamline workflows, improve efficiency, and consider outsourcing
    • Enhancing workflows, efficiency through automation, and third-party support ensure adaptable processes
    • Create efficient protocols and processes.
  • Example
    • Automating employee onboarding to handle high demand
    • Prevents a huge bottleneck if a large number of people are connected at the same time