{"id":5698,"date":"2016-02-16T20:22:52","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T20:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/multiacademstg.wpengine.com\/20000academy\/?p=5698"},"modified":"2025-07-05T15:06:24","modified_gmt":"2025-07-05T15:06:24","slug":"itil-and-iso-20000-how-to-setup-the-capacity-management-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2016\/02\/16\/itil-and-iso-20000-how-to-setup-the-capacity-management-process\/","title":{"rendered":"ITIL and ISO 20000 \u2013 How to setup the Capacity Management process"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>When I started exploring <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-itil\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ITIL<\/a>\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/what-is-iso-20000\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">ISO 20000<\/a>, what I figured out is that the Capacity Management process is involved in many operational activities, but also in most of the other IT Service Management (ITSM) processes. My further involvement in ITSM proved that fact.<\/p>\n<p>Because it is so important \u2013 or better to say, because it influences so many other processes \u2013 Capacity Management should be a well-set process, according to both ITIL and ISO 20000. And that\u2019s where the simplicity ends. There is no cookbook to explain how to set the <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=supply-demand-processes&amp;doc=capacity-management-process\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Capacity Management process<\/a>. This process will depend on your business and related services. But, fortunately, there are many elements in the scope of Capacity Management that are common to all companies, and give you a good chance to setup the process.<\/p>\n<h2>Any prerequisites?<\/h2>\n<p>Actually \u2013 yes, many of them. The reason for this is that activities in the process rely (heavily) on information and corresponding systems. To be more precise, without good preparation, the <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=supply-demand-processes&amp;doc=capacity-management-process\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Capacity Management process<\/a> can\u2019t be performed. So, let\u2019s see, then, what the prerequisites are.<\/p>\n<p>First of all, you should be aware of your organization\u2019s business, service, and technology components. These are the three sub processes of Capacity Management:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Business Capacity Management<\/li>\n<li>Service Capacity Management<\/li>\n<li>Component Capacity Management<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Since we have a whole article devoted to these sub processes, <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/knowledgebase\/three-faces-capacity-management\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Three faces of Capacity Management<\/a>, I will not go into more detail here. The point is that each of these sub processes provides inputs you need during the preparation phase. For example, if you have a service and you need to make a Capacity Plan for it \u2013 it\u2019s a must for you to understand its functionality (what does this service do?) and the related technology behind it. That will give you input about the components that support this service, and that\u2019s where you can be concrete with numbers (meaning measurable targets). So, here are the elements that you need to consider during the preparation phase:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Capacity Management Information System (CMIS) \u2013 this is a repository of all your capacity-related information. The CMIS is connected with the Configuration Management System (CMS; you can read the article <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/blog\/2013\/06\/04\/knowing-herd-service-asset-configuration-management-sacm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Knowing your herd \u2013 Service Asset and Configuration Management (SACM)<\/a>\u00a0to learn more about the CMS) and extends existing information by recording data about a component\u2019s utilization and thresholds, and provides reports.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=supply-demand-processes&amp;doc=capacity-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Capacity Plan<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 this is your formal plan where you will define how to deal with capacity requirements for a certain service, as well as how to overcome capacity issues (e.g., shortages).<\/li>\n<li>Roles and responsibilities \u2013 as with many other processes, it\u2019s crucial to define the responsibilities of all people included in the process.<\/li>\n<li>Related processes \u2013 the Capacity Management process is related to almost all other processes within the scope of IT Service Management (ITSM). Here are a few examples: Service Asset and Configuration management (SACM) is responsible to setup and manage the CMS. I mentioned already that Capacity Management has a sub process component capacity \u2013 which requires (and relies on) information from the CMS. In Financial Management, you need to know the utilization of your components\/services to charge appropriately. Other related processes included Incident Management, Change Management, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><div id=\"middle-banner\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><script>loadMiddleBanner();<\/script><br \/>\n<div id=\"side-banner-trigger\" class=\"banner-shortcode\"><\/div><\/p>\n<h2>The process itself<\/h2>\n<p>So, you are done with preparation. Great \u2013 that\u2019s a huge job that gives you the foundation where you can start building your process and related activities. As with many other processes \u2013 a policy is an excellent beginning.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Policy\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 This is your guideline throughout the process. In the policy you will define the general parameters of the process. A Capacity Policy could be a stand-alone document or integrated into the process description. A few examples which the policy should define are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Generalities \u2013 scope of the process, roles, responsibilities, tools in place, integration with other processes, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Capacity planning \u2013 declares the <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=supply-demand-processes&amp;doc=capacity-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Capacity Plan<\/a> (and its scope and depth of details) as a mandatory document during design of a new service or change of an existing one.<\/li>\n<li>Capacity acquisition \u2013 here you will define the threshold for particular types of capacities (e.g., percentage of storage space that triggers extension of new capacities), priority for acquisition, the way you do procurement, i.e., reuse existing equipment, etc.<\/li>\n<li>Capacity\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=resolution-and-fulfillment-processes&amp;doc=incident-record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">incidents<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 since they affect users directly, incidents are always a hot topic and should be tackled accordingly. The Capacity Policy should define responsibilities to support Incident Management, but also some technical details that help to distinguish between what are incidents and what are allowed deviations related to the component\u2019s \/ service\u2019s performance.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=supply-demand-processes&amp;doc=capacity-measurement-report\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Monitoring and measurement<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 this is necessary to keep the situation under control, i.e., to know where you are and what (if anything) you need to do. This will include definition of tools, responsibilities, reports, etc.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>High-level process description<\/strong> \u2013 The next step in the Capacity Management process setup is to group activities, i.e., to define the high-level process, which is shown in Figure.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Review current capacity and performance \u2013 The first set of activities includes monitoring and measurement activities, which will give you an overview of the current state of the components and the service itself. Based on these results, corrective activities will follow (e.g., when a certain threshold is reached).<\/li>\n<li>In the next step (improve capacity), you will try to improve the performance of the components and, consequently, the service. Here you will analyze existing and potential issues related to performance and create actions to overcome them.<\/li>\n<li>Based on the measurement and experience with existing components and services, you should try to forecast capacity needs, i.e., demand for the service.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-5699 size-full\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/\/sites\/6\/2016\/02\/High_level_process_description.png\" alt=\"High_level_process_description\" width=\"536\" height=\"355\" srcset=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/02\/High_level_process_description.png 536w, \/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2016\/02\/High_level_process_description-300x199.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 536px) 100vw, 536px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><em>Figure: High-level process description<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=supply-demand-processes&amp;doc=capacity-plan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Capacity Plan<\/a> includes creation of Capacity Plans (as described earlier) for each type of capacity you support.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Detailed activities\u00a0<\/strong>\u2013 The high-level process description will group similar activities, but in practice you will have to detail activities with associated roles and their responsibilities for each group of high-level activities. For example, while reviewing current performance you need to define the components or parts of a service that need monitoring (e.g., it\u2019s not necessary to monitor all components, only critical ones). That will differ from service to service. Once you know what should be monitored, you have to know who is doing that, which tools are used, the parameters that you will measure, the thresholds, and what to do once the threshold has been reached.<\/p>\n<h2>Never-ending story<\/h2>\n<p>So, your process is setup and everything appears to be under control. Well, that\u2019s just the beginning of the \u201cjourney.\u201d Namely, setting up <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/?rel=supply-demand-processes&amp;doc=capacity-management-process\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Capacity Management<\/a> belongs to the design activities, but once the process is set, the operational activities will rely heavily on this process and the results of its activities. That\u2019s a burden, but also an opportunity to influence efficiency once the services are used in the live environment.<\/p>\n<p><em>To implement ISO 20000 easily and efficiently, use our<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/iso-20000-documentation-toolkit\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">ISO 20000 Documentation Toolkit<\/a> <em>that provides step-by-step guidance for full ISO 20000 compliance.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When I started exploring ITIL\u00a0and ISO 20000, what I figured out is that the Capacity Management process is involved in many operational activities, but also in most of the other IT Service Management (ITSM) processes. My further involvement in ITSM proved that fact. Because it is so important \u2013 or better to say, because it &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":5699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[395,525,526,366,344,204],"class_list":["post-5698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-capacity-management","tag-cmis","tag-cms","tag-iso-20000","tag-itil","tag-service"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5698"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18545,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5698\/revisions\/18545"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/advisera.com\/20000academy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}