Critical IT staffing is a condition that affects many small and medium size businesses that incorporate information technology into key business processes.  All technology can fail -- hardware breaks, databases become corrupt, network links go away.  Business impact evaluation around the Information Technology component of the business process would show the dollar cost of extended service outages.  But many companies, especially small and medium size firms, do not do the initial risk evaluation and may be unaware of the potential for business losses. There is almost always a sense of 'it cannot happen to me'. This may lead them to inadequately staff support areas -- leaving themselves exposed to potential extended service outages. 

Appropriate staffing may be determined by first calculating the required staffing levels, then estimating the number of people required to sustain those levels.  Appropriate staffing levels are the solution to a queuing problem that relates the hours of service availability, number of service requests offered and acceptable waiting times for service. As with any queue, the less tolerable waiting for service is to the business, the more staff that need to be on hand to respond to requests. Benchmark ratios have been published,

A simplistic example would be a manufacturer who maintained an index to a rapidly changing inventory on a computer database. Shipping and receiving dispatchers rely on the database to tell them where in their high-cube warehouse finished product to be shipped and the raw materials to make more are stored. Everything is bar-coded, and fork lift operators with wireless scanners are continuously making updates as they move things around. If the database (or its server) crashed, manufacturing and distribution activities would quickly grind to a halt. But as long as the system stayed up, there appeared little need for IT staff. But when the system was down, business impacts would rapidly accumulate.  An outage of no more than 15 minutes during the 260 days of annual factory operation could be tolerated.  As the nearest external service provider was 1 hour's drive away, it was determined that there was a need for on site support.

Two thousand hours is the nominal duration of an individuals' working year -- so they need to hire a support staffer, yes? Well, if their allowable outage of 15 minutes was true, one person cannot do it reliably -- here is why.  Employment standards in most places provide for certain employee benefits -- vacations, statutory holidays and so forth -- add them up, it can be a lot.  In addition, prudent management will also allow for some number of sick days -- how many is often a group characteristic but usually 3 to 5 days per year. So in reality, when 10 statutory holidays, two weeks of vacation and 5 sick days are taken into account, one person could provide 235 days of service. The real requirement is for 1.11 people. If one person is hired and no other support mechanisms are put in place, the business can be considered as critically staffed -- their support requirements will only be met by the staff person 90% of the time. Their business recovery time objectives will not be met the rest of the time.

With larger firms, the problem is similar but more complex. Often, there is a separation of responsibility between the service providers and the service point of contact. With smaller firms, service requests are often communicated directly to the support person. Larger enterprises will divide this into two or more pools -- help desk support staff and separate pools of service staff. Staffing levels for help desk are often calculated through request incidence and allowable wait calculations similar to stochastic Erlang models for telephony. Support pool requirements proceed similarly -- balancing allowable service delays and service times against probabilities of service outages.  The more complex organizational structure will tend to mask the presence of critical staffing levels. Only event incidence, service completion and call traffic statistics, properly interpreted,  will show empirically whether support resources are effectively balanced against requirements and costs.

Critical staffing may be addressed in a number of ways. Other staff could be trained to follow documented recovery processes to backfill the gap. Temporary staff or external agencies could be engaged to provide interim support coverage. The choice of support strategy is as individual as the business.

Technology Strategists can assist small and medium size businesses in developing appropriate and cost effective staffing and support strategies for business critical Information Technology functions. And can assist with the establishing of  realistic and appropriate IT governance processes which are aligned to the needs and imperatives of the business.