How can you determine the optimal staffing levels for IT infrastructure operations?
IT infrastructure operations are essential for maintaining the availability, performance, and security of the IT systems and services that support business processes and functions. However, managing IT infrastructure operations also requires adequate staffing levels to ensure that the IT staff can handle the workload, respond to incidents and requests, and deliver quality service. How can you determine the optimal staffing levels for IT infrastructure operations? Here are some steps and factors to consider.
The first step is to assess the current situation of your IT infrastructure operations, including the size, complexity, and diversity of your IT environment, the types and volumes of incidents and requests, the service level agreements and expectations, and the skills and competencies of your IT staff. You can use various metrics and tools, such as workload analysis, incident management, service desk, and capacity management, to measure and monitor the performance and efficiency of your IT infrastructure operations. This will help you identify the gaps, risks, and opportunities for improvement in your current staffing levels.
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Um zu bestimmen, welche zusätzlichen Fachkräfte ich benötige, muss ich zunächst unsere IT-Infrastruktur gründlich analysieren. Dies beinhaltet die Bewertung der aktuellen Betriebsgröße, der IT-Umgebung und der Vielfalt der Systeme. Ich muss auch die Art und das Volumen der Supportanfragen und Vorfälle betrachten sowie unsere Service-Level-Agreements und Kundenerwartungen. Eine Überprüfung der Fähigkeiten unseres IT-Personals ist ebenfalls erforderlich, um festzustellen, wo wir Kompetenzlücken haben. Basierend auf dieser Bewertung könnte ich feststellen, welche rollen benötigt werden.
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Benchmarking: Compara tus niveles de personal con estándares de la industria o empresas similares. Utiliza métricas de benchmarking para evaluar la eficiencia de tu equipo en comparación con otras organizaciones.
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I would agree with these points and add two more that are a bit more general and strategic. 1. What is your corporate or business units plan and desires for the next 3 years? In my experience business drives IT, not the other way around. 2. Your current infrastructure and operations. Each year take a Director level or higher look at whether you want to have infrastructure environments as a “competency or a commodity”. A “competency” is something you keep in house, train up your FTE to be the subject matter experts and you feel you will be vested in for the next 3-5 years. A “commodity” is an infrastructure component or environment that you feel your best ROI is to outsource or get a managed service agreement or place into the cloud.
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Review level of AI implementation, RPA implementation and effectiveness of issue tracking and data monitoring to assure your basis of assessment is at dependable level which used for the planning. There are many times the first step is make the operations in order to grasp the depth of problems.
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También se puede realizar un feedback con los usuarios para saber los puntos específicos en los que están teniendo dificultad aunque no cuenten como un incidente.
The next step is to define the desired outcomes of your IT infrastructure operations, based on your business goals, strategies, and priorities. You need to align your IT infrastructure operations with your business objectives and customer needs, and determine what value and benefits you want to deliver through your IT services. You can use frameworks and standards, such as ITIL, COBIT, and ISO 20000, to define and implement best practices and processes for your IT infrastructure operations. This will help you establish the quality and performance criteria and indicators for your IT services.
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I probably should have read number two before typing out number 1. I would add meaningful control documentation to this. When I say meaningful, something that has been created from the bottom up, not top down. Have your operations teams formally submit their operation guides and run books to your ITSM area, get it formatted and reviewed for guidance accordingly ITIL, COBIT etc. then to your risk/complaince team to formulate a control based on those processes and run books. Too often I’ve seen it the other way around causing compliance issues because of lack of understanding of the actual work/process.
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Um maximalen Kundennutzen zu erzielen, definieren Sie Ziele wie verbesserte Reaktionszeiten und höhere Systemverfügbarkeit. Optimieren Sie die Ressourcennutzung für Kosteneffizienz, sorgen Sie für Skalierbarkeit und erhöhen Sie die Sicherheitsstandards. Stellen Sie fortlaufende Weiterbildung des Personals sicher und passen Sie SLAs kundenspezifisch an. Ein proaktives Incident-Management rundet das Konzept ab.
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2. Is the continuation of 1 and based on the results. Again it is important to look at what the broadness will be of the IT department. Further, knowing from a managerial level what certifications will best assist the different parts of the department. If it is strictly programming or security those are the certs needed but if there is AV, sound, help-desk often the necessities for those areas are different. And yes to what @Jey Cline contributed. "You need to align your IT infrastructure operations with your business objectives and customer needs, and determine what value and benefits you want to deliver through your IT services." that statement is key.
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Definir los resultados deseados va totalmente ligado al punto anterior. Es imposible definir la situación actual sin esto. De hecho, es justo lo que he indicado que le faltaba al texto anterior
The third step is to estimate the staffing requirements for your IT infrastructure operations, based on the current situation and the desired outcomes. You need to consider the workload, complexity, and variability of your IT infrastructure operations, and the skills, roles, and responsibilities of your IT staff. You can use various methods and models, such as benchmarking, forecasting, simulation, and optimization, to calculate and project the staffing needs and costs for your IT infrastructure operations. This will help you determine the optimal staffing levels and mix for your IT services.
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This comes back to what I mentioned in point 1. Competency vs Commodity. A macro level look at your environment and where you feel you want to staff up based on business usage and usage longevity. There’s also a matter of relative simplicity. SAN or NFS arrays can be easily managed services or outsourced. So can Data lakes, Hyperconverged Pod infrastructure. For the most part singular tech stack environments which can get a good price point as a commodity vs having operational FTE and engineering folks on the salary payroll.
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As an IT Operations Manager, this task was the hardest on me, it took me long time to identify the actual work load and define the keypersons and then plan distributing tasks/projects in a way to avoid issues in case of keypersons absence
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Zusätzlich zu den definierten Zielen empfehle ich, für die Personalberechnung Benchmarking-Methoden zu nutzen, um Branchenstandards zu verstehen. Einsatz von Prognosemodellen, um zukünftige Anforderungen abschätzen zu können, sowie Simulationswerkzeuge, um die Auswirkungen von Veränderungen in der IT-Infrastruktur auf den Personalbedarf zu verstehen. Optimierungsmodelle helfen, den effizientesten Einsatz von Personalressourcen zu ermitteln. Es ist wichtig, Flexibilität zu berücksichtigen, um auf unvorhergesehene Ereignisse reagieren zu können. All dies ermöglicht eine fundierte Entscheidungsfindung für die Personalplanung, um einen optimalen Service für den Kunden zu gewährleisten.
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Jey brings up outsourcing. That has to be considered in connection to what he mentioned with compliance as well as the awareness going back to what management, workers, and customers have need of. Knowing how outsourcing will impact money, time, and the changes at the activity level. IT can go in so many different directions. Internally forecasting in the midst of company growth and expansion can be challenging. In a world where most focus on full-time the necessity of part-time can arise. In this simulation can work better than general benchmarking - based on the business.
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Totalmente! Una vez tenemos la foto de situación, incluyendo lo que comenté sobre el punto de vista del negocio y los proyectos/necesidades a corto/medio plazo, será el momento de evaluar la carga de cada uno de nosotros. A eso le sumaría la opinión que tiene el resto de la empresa sobre la atención/resultados que estamos ofreciendo. Quizá nosotros tenemos una imagen de “llegamos a todo” y la realidad puede ser todo lo contrario
The final step is to implement and evaluate the staffing plan for your IT infrastructure operations, based on the staffing requirements and the available resources. You need to allocate and assign the IT staff to the appropriate tasks, roles, and teams, and provide them with the necessary training, tools, and support. You also need to monitor and review the performance and satisfaction of your IT staff and your IT services, and adjust the staffing plan as needed. You can use feedback mechanisms, such as surveys, interviews, and reviews, to measure and improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your IT infrastructure operations.
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- Un punto de partida que me ha sido útil es el control de la cantidad de incidentes y problemas reportados por día, semana o mes, así como el estatus en que se encuentren, influyendo la prioridad de cada incidencia. Si hay demasiados casos abiertos y son críticos, o algo está sucediendo con el sistema, o no se ha capacitado adecuadamente al usuario, o hay alguna resistencia pasiva o directa o definitivamente el soporte no se ha brindado adecuadamente. - Utilizar herramientas de análisis de la gestión de incidencias es vital, puede ser desde una hoja electrónica, hasta sistemas de manejo de data como el Poder BI. - Es importante mostrar estos resultados a la Alta Gerencia para proponer soluciones integrales respaldadas por ellos
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I write in english for better communication: 0. To wait till the Issues/day popping up is sometimes the only chance. But it depends on the view, maturity of the PM. If PM take his job, he can prevent this issue. 1. Start Early By focusing on the goal from the beginning and involving responsible leaders 2. Ensure Top-Level Support 3. Clearly Define Terms "Readiness can be an elusive concept," 4. Develop an Overarching Strategy For every goal set, it should be clear from the start 5. Integrate with the Program Plan Readiness activities 6. Establish Clear Roles and Responsibilities 7. Adopting a learning culture creates a sense of teamwork, 8. Measure and Communicate Progress 9. Keep a Positive Focus Focusing on what can go wrong can distract
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Die 4 Phasen des Projekt Management: Initiierung, Planung, Ausführung und Abschluss. Die fünfte Phase, die traditionell im Projektmanagement nicht immer hervorgehoben wird, ist die Operationalisierung. In diesem speziellen Kontext scheint die Operationalisierung die Überführung der Projektergebnisse in den regulären Betrieb und die dauerhafte Integration in die IT- und Geschäftsprozesse des Unternehmens zu sein. Also wie werden Projektergebnisse in die tatsächliche Nutzung und Acceptance überführt. Hierzu gehört das Human Change Management, dass klassische OCM, als auch einen neue Sichtweise. Wer wirklich Projekte erfolgreich umsetzen will, muss mehr auf das Ergebnis bestehen, weniger auf den Druck des Managements.
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La capacitación es un punto importante para minimizar la resistencia al cambio, por eso tomarse el tiempo de dar a conocer los cambios y sus ventajas y beneficios es una inversión de tiempo a futuro para el personal de IT.
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Me pasa igual que en el punto dos cuando dije que iba demasiado ligado al punto uno. Este punto cuatro lo añadiría al tres. No creo que vayan por separado y así lo indiqué en el comentario anterior.
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There's a methodology that can be used to help with job design, which is based on the Hertzberg Motivation and Hygiene Theory. The theory explains hygiene factors such as salary and supervision, and motivation factors such as recognition, purpose, and achievement. Once these factors are identified and understood, job roles can then be created for the organization's purposes to allow for proper employment of staff, leading to a decrease in turnover and an increase in productivity.
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I recommend establishing a "human pipeline", i.e. making sure that you have entry-level and medium-level folks (skills and experience) that are growing and will be ready to take over for your top-level contributors should they decide to leave for whatever reason. If you do not have a "human pipeline", then you are running a "mercenary" shop, highly-trained, highly-skilled, finely-tuned, but also highly specialized and therefore difficult to backup and to replace/replenish. The "human pipeline" ensures a blend of skills across individual contributors; people learning from each other, cross-training, covering for each other. More resilient, less brittle of an organization.
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Die vier Phasen des Projektmanagements sind Initiierung, Planung, Ausführung und Abschluss. Sie bilden den Lebenszyklus eines Projekts von der Idee bis zur Fertigstellung. Die fünfte Phase, die Operationalisierung, bezieht sich auf die Integration der Projektergebnisse in die täglichen Betriebsabläufe. Human Change Management ist ein Teil der Operationalisierung und befasst sich mit der Unterstützung der Mitarbeiter bei der Anpassung an Veränderungen, die durch das Projekt entstehen, um den Erfolg und Nutzen der neuen Lösung sicherzustellen. Zusätzlich, wir immer wieder agilität angesprochen! Der richtige Projektleiter, wird auch ein Klassisches Projektmanagement agil führen. Agilität hat nichts mit der Methode zu tun!
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