Managed Capacity Model Explained

Today, some of the most prominent challenges companies face are the unpredictable demands of customers and disruptive industries, along with increasing expectation of personalized customer service in every industry. Within their constraints, companies have to be prepared for such scenarios.

While companies continue their everyday business, they also work hard to catch up with these rapidly changing demands as well as working on being leaders in their target segments without compromising on their standards.

Under these industry circumstances, companies make their human resource investments based on their target digital products / processes and the know-how of individuals within their roster. However real-life events don’t always go as planned;

• Changing industry dynamics,
• Hiring and budgeting of required employees,
• OPEX/CAPEX targets & decisions,
• Difficulty to decide on hiring full-time employees for periodical projects that require certain qualifications,

are only some of the issues companies may face and drift into uncertainty during periods of need. In order to tackle these kinds of situations in the most effective way, adesso introduces “Managed Capacity” model.

What exactly is “Managed Capacity” model?

The word “capacity” is defined by the amount of business package output at the end of each sprint, which is calculated by the number of team members working using the Agile* methodology – a project management standard for every adesso project. To summarize with an example; a team of 5 people running a 2 week long (10 working days) sprint provides a total capacity of (10 working days x 5 people) 50 person*day for the company they’re working for. Going forward, using the agile methodology, business packages** (PBIs) will be defined and be included inside every sprint planning based on mutual agreement of each party.

“Managed” part of the model has 2 aspects to it; first one being mix of team members. Based on the technology stack preferences of its customers and adesso staff know-how, a team can consist of members for multiple platforms – java, .net, mobile, analyst, tester, UX/UI, front-end, etc. – and different numbers of people for that platform. The team members can not only change in quantity according to the fluctuation of high & low business demands but also can change in discipline (replacing java engineers with mobile or decreasing number of analysts and increasing testing specialists due to requirements). Thus ensuring the customers have the flexibility based on business requirements.

Second aspect of the managed part of this model is team management & dynamics. Running the Managed Capacity model, adesso team includes a role inside the team to act as a project manager / scrum master who is also the single point of contact for customer communications. So customers don’t have to deal with issues like satisfaction of members within the team, team synergy or seniority balance and the correct distribution of responsibilities.

Presenting the managed capacity model; adesso addresses business demands companies cannot meet, whether because they can’t yet foresee them or don’t have the manpower to handle such workload in a tailor-made fashion with a customizable / personalized content for each company’s different requirements. In a manner of speaking, adesso almost starts a cost-plannable mini-software company for each of its clients, specific to their unique needs and thus positions itself as a solid business partner to help reach their targets by relieving them from old-fashioned waterfall project execution or fixed price arrangements.

*Since its foundation in Germany in 1997, adesso has adopted agile methodology in its operations. Positioning agile at the center of its project execution allows the company to provide services using expert level agile methodology knowledge, as well as passing this knowledge in forms class trainings on agile, forming agile teams or assigning agile coaches to companies in an outsource employee model.

**In the Managed Capacity model, first 3 sprint reconciliations are settled using person*day figures for each sprint to allow for both parties to get to know each other. Following sprints are settled using business package sizes which are also based on person*day efforts. (E.g.assuming S:5, M:10, L:20 person*day packages settled, adesso guarantees an output of 1L, 2M & 2S PBIs to be delivered at the end of a 50 person*day capacity sprint.)