Capacity planning failures 'down to IT'

Capacity planning and management initiatives are largely ineffective because the majority of IT shops are unable to convey the results to non-IT managers.

The findings were disclosed after research by IT service optimisation software firm TeamQuest Corporation.

"If you make capacity planning look ponderous, management will kill it," said Neil Gunther, founder of Performance Dynamics Company.

TeamQuest and Performance Dynamics believe that a "rebirth" of capacity planning is taking place owing to a heightened awareness of virtualisation.

Gunther maintained that capacity planning is a critical responsibility of management that is not easy to perform and requires a certain form of discipline.

However, the purpose of capacity planning tools should be to help IT and management make decisions rapidly.

As business managers become more involved with the IT decisions for their business units, IT must understand what drives business decisions, according to Gunther.

"A manager is employed to look after a schedule and he will let a project fail as long as it fails on time," he said.

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