Balancing the Two Out of Three

A short post this week but it hit close to home a few times this quarter!

You know the old adage: you can only have two of the following three when executing a project—do it fast, do it well, or do it economically. I am beginning to believe that when capacity planning in a hyper-growth environment with volatile seasonality, you can only achieve two of these three elements.

To reduce the risk of losing one of these critical components, a good capacity planner must have multiple capacity outlets to tap into—a combination of internal staffing and various vendor operations. Furthermore, a skilled capacity planner ensures that the strengths of these different outlets in terms of speed, quality, and cost efficiency do not overlap excessively. By combining these diverse capacity sources, you create a high-quality staffing ecosystem capable of addressing both the hyper-growth and volatile seasonality of the business.