Quantifying the Impact

Here's where the rubber meets the road. Because this can be a lengthy process, I'm only going to work-through a couple of the issues here just to get started. I'll finish the process in a more appropriate setting. Nonetheless, we should be able to get a good feel for how this should go.
I'll start by working a relatively straightforward issue. The first one will be a result we hope to achieve and the second one will be a problem we hope to solve. Here goes...

Issue: Microsoft provides training vouchers for 30-days of free training.
Now remember, we're looking for something we can measure and this appears to me like it's something measurable right off the bat. So, let's just start asking the series of questions I outlined in my previous post.

1. How is this measured?
   This is measured in days of free training.
2. What is it now?
   We don't currently receive any free days of training. So the answer is zero.
3. What will it be with the proposed solution?
   Thirty days of free training.
4. What is the value of the free training?
   Thirty days of free training is valued at $15,000.
5. What's the value over time?
   This is a fixed-value that does not change over time. The value is $15,000 whether we use the 30 days in one month, one year, or three years.

So you can see that this one issue has a value of $15,000. I said this one would be easy. Now let's try another one, but a little tougher this time.

Issue: Tracking our software inventory and ensuring licensing compliance is a big hassle.
Because "big hassle" is tough to quantify, we need to do a little digging on this one to find something we can measure. A good place to start is to ask another question:
Q.) Where does this problem show-up on the bottom-line of the Organization?
A.) It takes staff time to manage those licenses and that staff time could be put to other, better uses.

Okay, now I think we have something we can measure in "staff time." And, now that we have something we can measure, we'll ask the same five questions:

1. How is this measured?
   This is measured in hours.
2. What is it now?
   We currently spend approximately 5 hours a month managing Microsoft licensing.
3. What will it be with the proposed solution?
   I would think we could get that down to something more like one hour per month.
4. What is the value of the difference?
   The difference is four hours per month. If we figure an average hourly rate of $20 an hour, we get $80 per month.
5. What's the value over time?
   Because the term of the Microsoft EA is three years, we'll use that as our time horizon. So, for three years, the value would be $2,880.

You can see by these two issues that we have come-up with $17,880 in value so far. Obviously, we've got a long way to go. But you get the idea. I'll keep working the list of issues off-line and report back on my next post.