So what makes a good Capacity Manager?

This item is a short piece gathering together a few thoughts I had following a discussion on the LinkedIn group 'Capacity Planning and Performance Evaluation'.

So what makes a good Capacity Manager apart from a good understanding of maths?

Able to understand the business reasoning and requirements behind applications and services (Business Analyst)

Able to understand how the business process maps onto the technology (Business Analyst)

Able to talk to the business user in their own language (Business Analyst)

Able to build models of a complex system in a simplified manner that accurately represents how the key transactions are supported (Developer)

Able to apply complex mathematical tools and techniques to simplify a problem (Technical Analyst)

Able to distil complex problems into simpler explanations (Technical Analyst)

Able to represent complex data in a manner that conveys the required meaning quickly (Technical Analyst)

Able to understand risk and provide recommendations for risk mitigation (Risk Manager)

...and all for a median salary!

One of the key areas that a Capacity Manager can provide value is to move capacity management from the Resource (or Component) level up to the Business level. ITIL is a useful ally for this, as its increasing adoption across the IT industry enables Capacity Managers to emphasise the benefits of moving up the 'Service Stack' (Business/Service/Resource-Component). While a Capacity Manager only provides reports on resource data (e.g. CPU %age utilisation) they will appear to add little value that cannot be provided by a toolset. Commonly we find that prospective customers want a tool to replace staff in the capacity management team. In this situation unless the Capacity Manager steps up to this challenge they are likely to find themselves looking for another role.

The value that a Capacity Manager needs to provide is the translation of business requirements into resource capacity requirements and, conversely, resource capacity constraints back into business constraints. This is how Capacity Managers need to evolve, add value and keep their jobs. Do it well enough and then the Capacity Manager becomes part of the business team and can move their function up the value chain.