About · The Capacity Planning Practice

How it will change

The body of knowledge grows by discussion and consensus, in versions and editions; How it grows sets out the loop. The seed paper is a working draft. In its own words:

The two claims are the part meant to last. The method, the thirteen mechanisms, the stages and every illustrative number are expected to change as people use them.

So expect the claims to hold steady across versions, and the method, the mechanisms, the stages and the numbers to move as practitioners try them. Each version's changes are listed under What changed, and every version is a complete paper you can download.

How to comment

Comments, corrections and counter-examples are welcome, especially from people who have run a planning cycle and seen where this would break. Every section has a Discuss link and a Suggest-an-edit link; Join in lists the other ways. You can also write to cpp@anacay.org. Please name the section or figure you mean; a public source, where there is one, helps most.

How this is written

Invented examples. Every example and number not attributed to a source is invented for illustration, and marked as such.
No employer data. The paper uses no confidential information and describes no organization's internal practice beyond what the cited public sources state.
Public sources, cited. Every source is in the reference list, dated and linked where it can be.
Judgment, marked. This is a practitioner synthesis, and it describes no particular organization. Where the paper says "in my experience," it marks judgment drawn from practice and the published accounts, not any one organization's process.

Who started it, and who stewards it

Founder and seed author: Guillermo Martinez
Steward: Anacay, for now; see Governance for the path to community governance
Edition: Seed edition, v0.1, built from the working paper, version 7.9
Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 for text and figures; MIT for site code

Who’s behind this

Guillermo Martinez started the practice and edits it for now. He’s a technical program manager with more than twenty years in infrastructure, much of it spent planning capacity. He’d like to hear from you, whether you agree, disagree or have a better way.

Connect on LinkedIn cpp@anacay.org

About the author; disclaimer

About the author. Guillermo Martinez worked in infrastructure capacity planning and resource governance at a hyperscale operator from 2015 to 2024. Views are his own.

Disclaimer. This paper reflects the author's own views. It is not endorsed by, and does not represent, any current or former employer. It uses no confidential information and describes no organization's internal practice beyond what the cited public sources state. All examples and figures not attributed to a source are invented for illustration, including the normalized machine unit, its weights and every ratio marked illustrative. Several cited works are by authors at the author's former employer; they are cited only for what they publish, alongside published work from other operators. Company, product and system names are trademarks of their respective owners, used only to identify published work; no endorsement is implied.