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RE: Users-to-tech support ratio

Parrotlover77 Updated - 13th Jan 2011

A linear formula is not appropriate for this equation. Consider upper and lower bounds for evidence.

If a company has 125 employees, a single tech is not sufficient to support all the desktop and servers. Let's say the tech is like a superhero and can single-handedly field all requests from all 125 employees with no help, patch all the servers, fix all the broken hardware, install all the required software, all by his or herself while he or she is there. What happens when he or she gets sick or goes on vacation?

On the other hand, 1000 techs for 125,000 employees seems extraordinarly excessive. You would have a couple hundred techs with nothing to do! As servers scale out, they only require a fraction of the support. Ten identical servers do not need much more support than one server. Ten completely different servers, on the other hand, is a different story entirely. Even for end user support, the scale matters. Supporting one sales person versus 100 people in a sales department does not scale up linearly for tech support.

Only in the middle does it make sense. Ten to 50 techs for 1,250 to 6,250 users seems fairly appropriate.

So, basically, this formula is bunk for all but between, say, 500 to 7,000 users.

A logarithmic formula would seem to be more appropriate. I have yet to find one that actually makes sense and works -- even within a fairly wide margin of error and unknowns. Every formula I've found for calculating IT support work-hours looks to be just made up out of thin air and not applicable to scales outside the size of the company the person who made it up works for.

I can't blame the presenter for not knowing the answer for all organization sizes. But at the same time, she should not present this as a formula every company can use, especially in the small business block. I feel bad for the admin of a 100 employee company that can't ever take any time off and works 16 hour days due to his boss watching this.