"You want $ 80.00 to have an expert install this garage door opener? That's outrageous!" At that price, I'll get my son Jeff, the petroleum engineering guru and my son-in-law, Yogi, the computer whiz, to do it. They're both college graduates. They won't be intimidated by 48 pages of installation instructions for each official language. Between them, they can run a power drill, a tape measure and a Phillips screw driver better than many people.
How many of us have participated in similar conversations during IT projects. The comments often go like this: "You want how much to install the new network and workstations?" At that price, I'll get my programmers to do it! They're college graduates; they'll figure it out.
How often have us project managers turned down the right expertise thinking that we had a cheaper, more immediate, solution at hand? We have a high regard for our programmers so we think it makes sense for them to also do other stuff.
This is crazy! This approach may be alluring but it's really full of false economy traps. First the programmers will have to climb a learning curve to perform network and workstation installation tasks. That's effort which translates into real dollars. Secondly, when they're tinkering with workstations, they're distracted from critical programming and testing tasks. That undermines quality. Thirdly, when the network needs more attention later (you can bet you last dollar on that), the programmers will be pulled in again. That consumes valuable schedule. These three points amply demonstrate that we need to work harder to avoid false economy traps.
Back in the garage, Jeff and I successfully installed the automatic garage door opener. Dad was delighted with the outcome. Total elapsed time was just under 6 hours for a total of 12 effort hours. Why are you snickering? I bet you can see where this is heading. Conservatively, this cost $ 750.00. Expressed another way, we used up an entire vacation day we could have spent with our children. That's opportunity lost. This effort included 2 trips to the hardware store for supplemental pieces not included in the garage door package and a vast amount of time pouring over the detailed installation instructions. Love those full-size outline drawings of every bolt, nut and washer. They avoided lots of confusion. But overall, we climbed quite a learning curve.
This saga parallels what will happen when we assign programmers to install the new network and workstations. They'll get it done. The quality will be fine. But how high is the actual cost and the related opportunity cost? It's higher than your worst nightmare.
A week later, Jeff's sister decides to have her garage door opener installed in her new home by the real experts for the $ 80.00. With our recent experience still vivid in our minds, Jeff and I weren't the least bit slighted by not being asked to do the job. Our thoughts had shifted to: "How can anyone make money at that price?" The previously stratospheric price had become an incredible bargain. The expert did a quality job in under 1 hour by himself!
The analogy holds for IT projects. Vast relevant experience and superior productivity make experts valuable on any IT project. Use the experts to install the new network and workstations. It will be faster, better, less distracting and cheaper.
The lesson for us IT project mangers? Use the right expertise. What initially sounds like a stratospheric price invariably turns out to be a bargain for cost, quality and schedule.
Yogi Schulz
Corvelle Consulting
300, 400 - 5 Ave. S. W.
Calgary, Alberta
Canada T2P 0L6
Phone: 403 249-5255
E-mail: YogiSchulz@<remove>corvelle.com
Web: http://www.corvelle.com
Corvelle Drives Concepts to Completion.