Arguments to expand IT department ?

[binstok]

Hello everybody,

I am currently the only sys admin / net admin / support person for the whole organization, and of course I now am overwhelmed by all the tasks to perform:
- Support (from 1st to 3rd)
- Servers admin
- Network admin
- Backup admin
- Documentation writing
- Printers admin
- Telephony system admin
- Projects (VMWare vSphere virtualisation, migration of the servers to VMs, servers replacements, internet bandwidth expansion, migration from Lotus Notes to Exchange, replacement of proxy and firewall) etc...

Our organisation has ? 100 users spread on 4 sites and 15 servers.

My main problem is that I need to show to our CEO that it's just impossible for only one person to manage all this. I am performing a lot of overtime to try to perform all the needed tasks, the projects are delayed as I cannot focus on them, the users are unhappy because the support resolution time is too long,...

I currently prioritise tasks based on business impact and urgency and as such I am forced to postpone other tasks.

My question is :
Are there guidelines or exemples on how an IT organization should be depending on the amount of users ? Can you please let me know web sites describing this ?
I need to explain, with external arguments, to out CEO that with just one person it just cannot work this way.

Thanks a lot for your help,

best regards,

Olivier

[ua549]

Do a search on IT staffing ratios. You'll find lots of hits.
Most of my clients had a support staffing ratio of approximately 1:33.
The smaller businesses had higher ratios.
That does not include any development staff.
That said, times change and staffing levels are tighter today than when I was consulting with management.

The best thing to do is quantify and compare service level goals against actual results using your help desk logs.

[ITOSO]

I got similar problem, just in a different angle ...

I am in a group working on certifying five systems together in a package. We were given 10 months to submit the final.

Suddenly, in the result of a drawing, our project is picked and we now have 1/2 of the time.

I was told to get help.

Any advice? I think I need something else, the staff ratio.

Thanks.

Itoso

[ua549]

If you have the budget to "get" help, you may want to consider obtaining resources from within your company that is familiar with the project and the company culture. IMO you can't bring a new hire up to speed in the time you have. As a matter of fact you will lose productive time because of the resources required for orientation and training a new person.