Linear Planning: Not Working: Frustrated by Long Response Times? So Are Your Customers, and It's Only Getting Worse

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For many businesses, unanticipated growth and demand is a good thing--a sign of economic prosperity. For other businesses that are infrastructure based, it can spell disaster. The potential collapse of your technology environment, or even an adverse impact on your ability to provide service, can end up producing numerous customer complaints or worse. Fortunately, most growth can be expected, planned, and prepared for. But when it comes to technology, your planning technique will either serve you or fail you. The definition of failure in this instance is the inability to respond in a timely manner to changes in the use characteristics of your customers or users. Symptoms can be a slow network, a server that continually bogs down, or no access at all. Planning is looking ahead far enough and understanding the needs of not only your current internal and external customers, but what they--or new customers--will use in the long term. If you plan in a straight line, you will only be able to see the next step. You can give your users more if you understand Moore. Moore's Law lives Gordon Moore (Intel cofounder) was a visionary. In 1965, he predicted that the number of transistors that could be placed on an integrated circuit would double every two years. As of this writing, Gordon Moore is alive and still correct. The transistor, the fundamental switch inside our computing devices today, gives our computers power in speed, the number of instructions that a computer can execute in a given second, along with all the other things that computers can do. In testing Moore's Law, when you start with a quantity of one back in 1965 and you apply the math to 2012, that would translate to 70 trillion transistors. Manufacturers using the available computer chips from Intel, AMD, and others, can easily equip a laptop with this type of computing power. All this converts into smaller, more portable computing devices, and that is the techno-tsunami that we are struggling with today. What used to take up space on your desk and a spot on the floor now fits in your hand. The unquenchable thirst for Moore Power has yet to be satisfied. It's not just size and power that's changed so dramatically. Today's operating systems give the user real flexibility. Gone are keyboard-only instructions. Even the mouse is dead--or close to it. Touch has become the de-facto standard of fingertip computing, and anybody can use it. You can even control the computer by your thoughts. Emotiv (www.emotiv.com) has produced a high-resolution, neuro-signal acquisition device that processes your thoughts using a wireless headset. When a computer becomes intuitive and programs anticipate the user's next action, then the user begins to relate to the device. In essence, the computer takes you where you want to be and, in some cases, remembers what you did last. The by-product is confidence. Insatiable demand not foreseen Lifestyle is an important component of planning and the most often ignored. Not long ago, telecommuting was considered a last resort as an employment option and was viewed as being very costly. Today, it is a normal extension of the virtual enterprise. We have become wireless, portable, and constantly connected to work, family, and friends. Consequently, the rate consumers are adopting technology is wreaking havoc on networks and the systems that support them. The Consumer Electronic Association reported that during 2011, 28 million tablet computers were sold. This past March, Apple reported that more than three million iPad3's were sold in the first weekend it was available in stores (March 16, 2012). Who would have guessed? The explosive growth of these devices has placed an unforeseen demand on existing infrastructure. Be it WiFi, Wi-Max, 3G, or 4G, the installed infrastructure has not anticipated the rapid growth of wireless-connected devices. …