The Power of One Platform for IT Service & Project Management

If you’ve read our blog, you likely know by now that self-service and Knowledge-Centered Service (KCS^®) can be very effective strategies for mitigating what 78% of IT organizations in our market survey identified as their top challenge — resource constraints. And while it’s clear that self-service and KCS would make perfect additions to any IT Service Management (ITSM) toolkit, if you’re really looking to take your IT resource optimization to the next level, there are a few other strategies you should consider.

According to our survey, 61% of respondents are planning to move to a one-platform approach for ITSM and Project Portfolio Management (PPM) so they can gain better control over all of their IT resources. But why is it so important to bring ITSM and PPM together on a common platform? The answer is easy – resource capacity planning.

Hema Nekkanti, project management office manager for the City of Sunnyvale, CA, touts the benefits of bringing IT service management (ITSM) and project portfolio management (PPM) together on a single platform, “With one platform now we can actually see the tickets that are being worked on as well as the projects that are in the pipeline,” she said. “This gives us the ability to actually allocate the resources appropriately, and there’s no resource conflict.”

With resource capacity planning, you’re able to get a big-picture view across your entire IT organization, which in turn enables to you balance workloads according to the resources you have and the type of work that needs to be done. For example, let’s say you have three technicians at your disposal and three functional areas to cover—service, projects and operations. Even though each technician may wear different hats and cover all three areas, by engaging in resource capacity planning you’re able to optimize each technician’s workload based on their skill set and availability. That allows the work to be completed more effectively and efficiently because you’re able to play to your staff’s strengths and not overcommit one of them while underutilizing another.

Kathleen Boutte, Chief Information Officer at Sunnyvale, said she highly values the resource management visibility she gets from TeamDynamix, “We really needed that visibility, and it’s why this has been such a great tool for us. Having both the service side and the project side means I can see whether my team is working on a ticket or a project and how busy are they. I get visibility into their availability, and I can forecast more accurately to know that I am not overworking staff or that we’re not just sitting on the bench twiddling our thumbs.”

Here is a short list of benefits resource capacity planning offers when you bring ITSM and PPM together on a single platform:

• Improved IT productivity
• Improved IT performance measurement & reporting capabilities
• Improved quality of service (QoS)

If you find your organization is part of the 77% of respondents that are not currently engaging in resource capacity planning, maybe it’s time to look at why. This is an area within IT that represents the most potential for improvement. And with the right ITSM and PPM platform, it’s easy to get the visibility you need to quickly implement a solid resource capacity planning strategy.