Assessment of staffing needs in the IT department
In this article, we review how an IT organization can map and assess the IT department’s staffing in order to spot areas of understaffing.
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IT departments find themselves in a complex and often challenging position, navigating increasing business demands and limited resources. In general, many organizations today are experiencing increased pressure on the IT function, driven by a growing expectation that IT will play an increasingly central role in the company’s overall business strategy. This means that IT functions must be able to support faster innovation, higher efficiency and strong business support.
Understaffing can have many negative consequences, including reduced quality of deliveries, lack of focus on cost-effectiveness and a general decline in efficiency and improvement.
The methodology in the article equips the reader to spot signs of understaffing and the potential consequences thereof. The method consists of four phases:
- Assessment of the staffing situation based on collected data and observations
- Mapping FTEs and categorizing tasks
- Mapping factors driving IT department staffing needs
- Identifying symptoms of under- and overstaffing
