IT Success!: Towards a New Model for Information Technology

4.6. Linking demand to resource capability

The processes described above for capturing and approving demand from idea through to project primarily address business aspects like costs and benefits. But what about IT resource and scheduling constraints – after all, demand might be justified from a business perspective, but does IT have the resources and the skills necessary to do it?

An integral part of the approvals process should therefore be to match project requests which are in the final stages of approval to IT resource and scheduling constraints. This exercise should normally already be part of the risk profile of the project request, discussed earlier in this chapter.

The outcome of this resource demand analysis and capacity planning would be to secure the necessary resources as far ahead of time as possible. This would be done through a combination of new hiring, contractors, reprioritization of other project requests – or even concluding that the work cannot be staffed this time round and should be put on hold till resources become available.

If you don't do a resource demand analysis and capacity planning as part of your approvals process, then the business executives who approve projects are essentially saying that IT has elastic resources and that they should go and figure it out. Which, to put it mildly, is highly unreasonable. Can you imagine what would happen if the same business executives put together a business plan which called for building so many units of new ...