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.

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.

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 part of the 77% of respondents 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.

If you’d like to learn more about IT resource optimization, you check out our on-demand webinar.

KCS^® is a service mark of the Consortium for Service Innovation™.

Editor’s note: This post was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated with new information.