1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:00,960 In this lesson, 2 00:00:00,960 --> 00:00:02,910 we'll cover capacity planning. 3 00:00:02,910 --> 00:00:03,990 Now, capacity planning 4 00:00:03,990 --> 00:00:05,970 is a critical strategic planning effort 5 00:00:05,970 --> 00:00:08,430 that ensures that an organization is adequately equipped 6 00:00:08,430 --> 00:00:10,590 to meet any future demands at the right time 7 00:00:10,590 --> 00:00:12,630 and in the most cost effective manner. 8 00:00:12,630 --> 00:00:14,610 When it comes to conducting capacity planning, 9 00:00:14,610 --> 00:00:16,379 you need to consider four main aspects 10 00:00:16,379 --> 00:00:18,060 of your organization's capacity, 11 00:00:18,060 --> 00:00:20,010 including its people, its technology, 12 00:00:20,010 --> 00:00:22,320 its infrastructure, and its processes. 13 00:00:22,320 --> 00:00:24,270 By balancing your current operational requirements 14 00:00:24,270 --> 00:00:25,860 against your projects for the future, 15 00:00:25,860 --> 00:00:27,870 you can effectively use capacity planning 16 00:00:27,870 --> 00:00:29,621 to ensure your business continues to operate smoothly 17 00:00:29,621 --> 00:00:31,530 over the long term. 18 00:00:31,530 --> 00:00:33,630 Now first, let's consider the people element 19 00:00:33,630 --> 00:00:35,610 within our capacity planning. 20 00:00:35,610 --> 00:00:37,260 When you conduct capacity planning, 21 00:00:37,260 --> 00:00:39,510 it's going to be centered around your organization's people, 22 00:00:39,510 --> 00:00:41,460 and so you need to analyze your current personnel 23 00:00:41,460 --> 00:00:44,430 to understand their current skillset and available capacity, 24 00:00:44,430 --> 00:00:46,290 as well as forecasting your future needs 25 00:00:46,290 --> 00:00:48,240 so you can plan for the hiring, training, 26 00:00:48,240 --> 00:00:51,150 and downsizing of your workforce if needed. 27 00:00:51,150 --> 00:00:52,860 Now, when it comes to capacity planning 28 00:00:52,860 --> 00:00:55,050 for your organization's human resource component, 29 00:00:55,050 --> 00:00:56,250 you should be focused on ensuring 30 00:00:56,250 --> 00:00:57,690 that you have the right number of people 31 00:00:57,690 --> 00:00:59,040 with the right skills available 32 00:00:59,040 --> 00:01:01,620 to meet your organization's strategic objectives. 33 00:01:01,620 --> 00:01:03,535 For example, if you're running a retail store, 34 00:01:03,535 --> 00:01:06,240 and you're conducting your capacity planning for the year, 35 00:01:06,240 --> 00:01:07,213 you might create a strategic plan 36 00:01:07,213 --> 00:01:09,900 to hire an additional 20 people to help you fulfill 37 00:01:09,900 --> 00:01:12,090 your anticipated surge in consumer demand 38 00:01:12,090 --> 00:01:14,130 during the upcoming holiday shopping season 39 00:01:14,130 --> 00:01:16,470 that occurs in November and December each year. 40 00:01:16,470 --> 00:01:18,810 So your store might hire a bunch of seasonal 41 00:01:18,810 --> 00:01:21,330 or part-time employees on October 1st each year, 42 00:01:21,330 --> 00:01:22,770 so that those new employees will be ready 43 00:01:22,770 --> 00:01:24,420 to handle the increased sales period, 44 00:01:24,420 --> 00:01:25,860 provide better customer service, 45 00:01:25,860 --> 00:01:27,180 ensure smoother operations 46 00:01:27,180 --> 00:01:28,740 at a time when your regular staff 47 00:01:28,740 --> 00:01:30,630 would otherwise be overwhelmed. 48 00:01:30,630 --> 00:01:33,650 Then after January 1st, when that demand usually decreases, 49 00:01:33,650 --> 00:01:36,000 these seasonal positions will be offboarded 50 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:37,950 from the organization so that the retail store 51 00:01:37,950 --> 00:01:39,477 can minimize its operational costs 52 00:01:39,477 --> 00:01:42,210 and the number of personnel until the demand rises again 53 00:01:42,210 --> 00:01:44,270 in the fourth quarter of that next year. 54 00:01:44,270 --> 00:01:46,890 Second, we need the technology element 55 00:01:46,890 --> 00:01:48,713 to be considered during our capacity planning. 56 00:01:48,713 --> 00:01:51,320 When it comes to technology, your capacity planning 57 00:01:51,320 --> 00:01:52,980 is going to require that you have an understanding 58 00:01:52,980 --> 00:01:55,620 of your current technological resources that are being used 59 00:01:55,620 --> 00:01:57,840 within your organization, including various types 60 00:01:57,840 --> 00:01:59,880 of software and hardware that you might utilize, 61 00:01:59,880 --> 00:02:01,815 the rate at which these resources are being utilized, 62 00:02:01,815 --> 00:02:03,777 and any potential future technological demands 63 00:02:03,777 --> 00:02:06,690 that might be placed upon your organization. 64 00:02:06,690 --> 00:02:08,869 As you consider the technology used by your organization, 65 00:02:08,869 --> 00:02:11,009 you also need to assess whether or not 66 00:02:11,009 --> 00:02:13,043 your existing technology can handle the projected growth 67 00:02:13,043 --> 00:02:16,380 or if your organization needs to invest in some additional 68 00:02:16,380 --> 00:02:18,150 or newer technological solutions 69 00:02:18,150 --> 00:02:20,070 to meet the forecasted demand. 70 00:02:20,070 --> 00:02:22,890 For example, if you're running an e-commerce website, 71 00:02:22,890 --> 00:02:24,510 you should understand how many concurrent 72 00:02:24,510 --> 00:02:26,430 or simultaneous users your platform 73 00:02:26,430 --> 00:02:27,630 is going to be able to support 74 00:02:27,630 --> 00:02:30,540 before it's unable to process your end user's requests. 75 00:02:30,540 --> 00:02:32,640 If your platform is not designed to be able to scale up 76 00:02:32,640 --> 00:02:35,017 to create more capacity during a promotion or sales period, 77 00:02:35,017 --> 00:02:37,520 that could generate a lot of higher traffic levels for you, 78 00:02:37,520 --> 00:02:40,530 and then you could be losing out on potential sales, 79 00:02:40,530 --> 00:02:43,260 because your servers can't handle the excess capability, 80 00:02:43,260 --> 00:02:45,930 and your potential customers can't access your website, 81 00:02:45,930 --> 00:02:47,610 because there's too many other people logged in 82 00:02:47,610 --> 00:02:49,290 and trying to make a purchase. 83 00:02:49,290 --> 00:02:50,670 In our modern networks, though, 84 00:02:50,670 --> 00:02:51,990 we can help overcome this issue 85 00:02:51,990 --> 00:02:53,880 by relying on cloud-based services 86 00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:55,650 that allow us to easily increase our storage 87 00:02:55,650 --> 00:02:57,960 or bandwidth capacity during any high demand periods 88 00:02:57,960 --> 00:02:59,130 that we might encounter, 89 00:02:59,130 --> 00:03:00,900 and then we can automatically reduce 90 00:03:00,900 --> 00:03:02,941 these additional resources back to the lower levels 91 00:03:02,941 --> 00:03:05,340 in order to lower our operational expenses 92 00:03:05,340 --> 00:03:07,560 during the lower demand periods. 93 00:03:07,560 --> 00:03:09,750 Third, let's consider the infrastructure element 94 00:03:09,750 --> 00:03:11,400 of our capacity planning. 95 00:03:11,400 --> 00:03:12,939 Infrastructure capacity planning is going 96 00:03:12,939 --> 00:03:15,480 to involve planning for the physical space and utilities 97 00:03:15,480 --> 00:03:16,470 that are available to support 98 00:03:16,470 --> 00:03:18,810 your organization's ongoing operations. 99 00:03:18,810 --> 00:03:21,101 These physical spaces includes lots of different things, 100 00:03:21,101 --> 00:03:23,340 including office spaces, warehouses, 101 00:03:23,340 --> 00:03:25,620 production facilities, and data centers. 102 00:03:25,620 --> 00:03:27,060 For example, I used to run 103 00:03:27,060 --> 00:03:28,680 a large theater network operations center 104 00:03:28,680 --> 00:03:30,090 for the US government that supported 105 00:03:30,090 --> 00:03:32,520 military computer networks across the Middle East. 106 00:03:32,520 --> 00:03:34,560 As part of my role, we were very focused 107 00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:36,360 on our infrastructure capacity planning, 108 00:03:36,360 --> 00:03:38,040 because our data center only had room 109 00:03:38,040 --> 00:03:40,290 for a certain number of rack mounted servers, 110 00:03:40,290 --> 00:03:41,850 and because each server took up some amount 111 00:03:41,850 --> 00:03:44,310 of physical space, a certain amount of power consumption, 112 00:03:44,310 --> 00:03:45,720 and generating a certain amount of heat, 113 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:47,670 we had to keep track of all of this. 114 00:03:47,670 --> 00:03:49,770 We had some pretty complex applications that we used 115 00:03:49,770 --> 00:03:52,350 to calculate exactly how much power would be used 116 00:03:52,350 --> 00:03:54,390 and how much heat would be generated by any server 117 00:03:54,390 --> 00:03:56,820 that somebody wanted to install inside of our data center. 118 00:03:56,820 --> 00:03:59,310 Now, because our data center only had so much square footage 119 00:03:59,310 --> 00:04:00,780 available for installing equipment, 120 00:04:00,780 --> 00:04:03,294 we had to be very judicious in our infrastructure planning 121 00:04:03,294 --> 00:04:05,705 to be able to capture the capacity planning we had 122 00:04:05,705 --> 00:04:07,860 and able to ensure that only servers that were needed 123 00:04:07,860 --> 00:04:09,870 to be installed locally were being supported. 124 00:04:09,870 --> 00:04:11,970 And we turned down several proposed installations, 125 00:04:11,970 --> 00:04:14,010 because those services could be hosted remotely 126 00:04:14,010 --> 00:04:15,900 in the cloud instead of on-site. 127 00:04:15,900 --> 00:04:18,300 And this saved us additional space in our data center 128 00:04:18,300 --> 00:04:19,470 for other projects that required 129 00:04:19,470 --> 00:04:22,680 extremely low latency connections to support the end users. 130 00:04:22,680 --> 00:04:25,080 Fourth and finally, let's consider the process element 131 00:04:25,080 --> 00:04:26,700 of our capacity planning. 132 00:04:26,700 --> 00:04:29,186 Process capacity planning is going to focus on optimizing 133 00:04:29,186 --> 00:04:31,140 and ensuring that business processes 134 00:04:31,140 --> 00:04:33,360 can withstand any fluctuations in demand. 135 00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:36,300 This fluctuation could be an increase or decrease in demand, 136 00:04:36,300 --> 00:04:37,620 because both of these could affect 137 00:04:37,620 --> 00:04:40,200 our existing operations within our organization. 138 00:04:40,200 --> 00:04:41,610 By streamlining our workflows, 139 00:04:41,610 --> 00:04:43,560 improving our efficiency through automation 140 00:04:43,560 --> 00:04:45,780 or outsourcing tasks to a third-party vendor, 141 00:04:45,780 --> 00:04:47,820 we can ensure that our processes are being designed 142 00:04:47,820 --> 00:04:49,560 to support varying levels of demand 143 00:04:49,560 --> 00:04:51,120 that are being placed upon them. 144 00:04:51,120 --> 00:04:53,580 For example, if your organization is currently using 145 00:04:53,580 --> 00:04:55,555 a manual process to onboard your new employees 146 00:04:55,555 --> 00:04:58,080 and create their new user accounts on your systems, 147 00:04:58,080 --> 00:04:59,730 this could create a huge bottleneck 148 00:04:59,730 --> 00:05:02,790 if a large amount of people are all hired at the same time. 149 00:05:02,790 --> 00:05:04,470 Let's assume you're running the technology network 150 00:05:04,470 --> 00:05:05,670 for a large call center 151 00:05:05,670 --> 00:05:07,980 that supports a large e-commerce platform. 152 00:05:07,980 --> 00:05:09,480 Now, they know they're going to have a larger demand 153 00:05:09,480 --> 00:05:10,620 during November and December 154 00:05:10,620 --> 00:05:12,210 because of the increased holiday shopping 155 00:05:12,210 --> 00:05:13,380 by their consumers. 156 00:05:13,380 --> 00:05:15,120 So they decided to hire and onboard 157 00:05:15,120 --> 00:05:17,130 an additional 500 seasonal employees 158 00:05:17,130 --> 00:05:19,380 to work in the call center, and you've now been tasked 159 00:05:19,380 --> 00:05:21,348 with creating each new employee a user account 160 00:05:21,348 --> 00:05:24,270 so they can log in and perform their new work roles. 161 00:05:24,270 --> 00:05:27,510 Well, doing this as a manual workflow might take you days, 162 00:05:27,510 --> 00:05:29,100 because the large number of users that you need 163 00:05:29,100 --> 00:05:30,840 to now create user accounts for. 164 00:05:30,840 --> 00:05:32,390 But if you can automate this process 165 00:05:32,390 --> 00:05:34,440 so you can support the simultaneous creation 166 00:05:34,440 --> 00:05:36,510 of up to 500 user accounts at once, 167 00:05:36,510 --> 00:05:38,010 this would eliminate one of the bottlenecks 168 00:05:38,010 --> 00:05:39,720 in our onboarding workflow. 169 00:05:39,720 --> 00:05:41,070 So let me give you another example 170 00:05:41,070 --> 00:05:42,270 to bring all four of these areas 171 00:05:42,270 --> 00:05:45,090 of capacity planning together in a real world scenario. 172 00:05:45,090 --> 00:05:45,990 Let's pretend that you're working 173 00:05:45,990 --> 00:05:48,090 for a healthcare provider that's planning to introduce 174 00:05:48,090 --> 00:05:50,490 telemedicine services to its end users. 175 00:05:50,490 --> 00:05:52,770 Now, first, we need to consider the people portion 176 00:05:52,770 --> 00:05:54,300 of our capacity planning. 177 00:05:54,300 --> 00:05:56,373 Here, we might find that we need to train our existing staff 178 00:05:56,373 --> 00:05:58,390 on using new telemedicine protocols 179 00:05:58,390 --> 00:06:00,060 and hiring additional staff 180 00:06:00,060 --> 00:06:02,940 with experience in conducting remote healthcare services. 181 00:06:02,940 --> 00:06:04,629 These actions would help us prepare our workforce 182 00:06:04,629 --> 00:06:06,950 to manage virtual consultations more effectively 183 00:06:06,950 --> 00:06:08,490 by having the right people 184 00:06:08,490 --> 00:06:11,370 and the right number of people assigned to this project. 185 00:06:11,370 --> 00:06:13,190 Second, we move into the world of technology 186 00:06:13,190 --> 00:06:15,180 inside of our capacity planning, 187 00:06:15,180 --> 00:06:17,040 and here we want to ensure that we're investing 188 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:19,105 in a secure and compliant telemedicine platform 189 00:06:19,105 --> 00:06:20,610 that would allow us to utilize 190 00:06:20,610 --> 00:06:22,410 robust cybersecurity measures. 191 00:06:22,410 --> 00:06:24,240 This might also require us to scale up the systems 192 00:06:24,240 --> 00:06:25,590 that we're using so they can handle 193 00:06:25,590 --> 00:06:27,032 an increased amount of end user traffic 194 00:06:27,032 --> 00:06:29,970 and their associated healthcare data storage needs. 195 00:06:29,970 --> 00:06:31,757 Third, we need to consider infrastructure 196 00:06:31,757 --> 00:06:33,810 as part of our capacity planning. 197 00:06:33,810 --> 00:06:36,241 And here we might need to modify the physical facilities 198 00:06:36,241 --> 00:06:38,747 to accommodate the use of telemedicine technologies, 199 00:06:38,747 --> 00:06:41,550 such as setting up dedicated spaces for healthcare providers 200 00:06:41,550 --> 00:06:42,827 to be able to conduct remote consultations 201 00:06:42,827 --> 00:06:44,634 in a quiet and secure area 202 00:06:44,634 --> 00:06:47,790 that is free of any interruptions or disturbances. 203 00:06:47,790 --> 00:06:50,063 Fourth, we need to think about our organization's processes 204 00:06:50,063 --> 00:06:52,890 as our final part of our capacity planning. 205 00:06:52,890 --> 00:06:55,290 By developing new workflow protocols for the scheduling, 206 00:06:55,290 --> 00:06:58,020 conducting and following up of our virtual appointments, 207 00:06:58,020 --> 00:07:00,750 we can ensure that our end users, in this case patients, 208 00:07:00,750 --> 00:07:03,480 are being taken care of properly and efficiently. 209 00:07:03,480 --> 00:07:05,550 Some of the changes to consider involve the creation 210 00:07:05,550 --> 00:07:07,920 of any new procedures for patient data management 211 00:07:07,920 --> 00:07:09,570 that align with privacy regulations, 212 00:07:09,570 --> 00:07:11,670 and the implementation of any best practices 213 00:07:11,670 --> 00:07:12,810 for remote healthcare 214 00:07:12,810 --> 00:07:14,970 to provide the best care to our patients. 215 00:07:14,970 --> 00:07:17,460 So as we consider each of the four aspects, 216 00:07:17,460 --> 00:07:19,470 we also have to anticipate the estimated demand 217 00:07:19,470 --> 00:07:20,940 for our telemedicine services, 218 00:07:20,940 --> 00:07:22,432 and then plan to support them accordingly 219 00:07:22,432 --> 00:07:24,990 while we seek to ensure a seamless transition 220 00:07:24,990 --> 00:07:26,658 for both our staff and our patients, 221 00:07:26,658 --> 00:07:29,010 all the while trying to maintain the highest level 222 00:07:29,010 --> 00:07:30,810 of quality for our patients. 223 00:07:30,810 --> 00:07:33,472 So remember, capacity planning is a strategic imperative 224 00:07:33,472 --> 00:07:35,880 that spans your entire organization. 225 00:07:35,880 --> 00:07:38,700 Capacity planning requires foresight, strategic analysis, 226 00:07:38,700 --> 00:07:40,080 and continual adjustments. 227 00:07:40,080 --> 00:07:42,270 And by adequately planning for capacity and people, 228 00:07:42,270 --> 00:07:44,550 technology, infrastructure and processes, 229 00:07:44,550 --> 00:07:46,581 your organization will be able to respond effectively 230 00:07:46,581 --> 00:07:49,410 to market demands, seize opportunities for growth, 231 00:07:49,410 --> 00:07:51,720 and maintain continuous improvement and competitiveness 232 00:07:51,720 --> 00:07:53,610 within an evolving marketplace. 233 00:07:53,610 --> 00:07:54,990 Capacity planning is not just 234 00:07:54,990 --> 00:07:56,610 about meeting the demands of today, 235 00:07:56,610 --> 00:07:58,680 but it's also about being well prepared for the challenges 236 00:07:58,680 --> 00:08:00,933 and opportunities that we may face tomorrow.