Ted MacNeil writes: >You're missing one that I've seen missed all the time. >Unless it's a work-alike, you have the (one-time) cost >of re-training.
I disagree (a little). I think retraining is not missed very often at all, but it gets expressed (incorrectly, opaquely) as "I don't ever want to change" or some variation thereof. At least in the mainframe world that's a too-common (and self-destructive, I would argue) phenomenon. Of course it's rubbish, at least from a business management point of view. People ought to focus on what the true costs and benefits of change are. There ought to be a clear, unemotional distinction between 5 minutes to read the new documentation to learn a new menu option versus 100 collective person-years of intense Ph.D.-level study. (Or whatever.) One of those costs is not like the other. My point is that those conversion issues, including retraining, need to get expressed as *realistic* numbers. By the way, there's a certain active participant in this forum who likely has a very good idea of the real costs (and benefits) of training. :-) And he would probably say, as I would, that training ought not be a one-time cost. There is often continuing education, staff turnover, etc. Those factors ought to go into a proper business case analysis, too. For example, it's entirely possible that converting from Tool X to Tool Y would involve "moderate" or "high" up-front retraining costs but "substantially lower" recurring training costs. So you look at risk-adjusted net present values, etc., to determine the best course of action. (And yes, IBM and perhaps also other companies offer financing to smooth out cash flows, which is a common requirement in a conversion project.) - - - - - Timothy Sipples IBM Consulting Enterprise Software Architect E-Mail: [email protected] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
