rogp

It is not something I have done before so are there any useful web based resources?

Obviously I know roughly what I'd like to achieve but how do I present each proposal in a positive light?

Roger

Neil Smalley

Exec Summary

Short management speak section outlining the key points you want to make
Include
Price of options
Return on investment
Key points.

Then finish off with a 2 or 3 line elevator speech which tells the reader why they should go for it.

Next outline each option, with real long teccy being put in the appendices.

Then a preferred option selection and why

Then a pricing summary

Then the appendices.

A good trick is to only use 2/3rd of the width of the page, and every so often highlight a key point in a text box on the left hand third of the page.

Things like

"This option will produce an ROI of 12 months, as opposed to 36 for the other two."

Try and quantify the benefits either into cost saved(best) or increased efficieny and service levels(next best). Avoid fluffy meaningless statements.

rogp

Thanks Neil, thats very helpful.

vmax

Look for ways to highlight any invest budget with a opportunity to reclaim either revnue or invest.

eg. Introduction of VPN costing 22K with maintance of 8k per year, save 15K per year on International ISDN costs.

Suresh

Don't forget to inflate the expected savings and quote an over-optimistic go-live date... Standard tricks to get project approval at my company

rogp

Underhand tactics noted

dsmith

A complete mental divorce from technical and physical possibilites would appear vital.....

civic-type-r

dont forget "if not" benefits or negative benefits

ie

if we dont do x, y,z will happen causing a to bugger B, C and R

civic-type-r

PS

if your looking for VPNs, comms, data storage, backup, t'internet etc i can help. Cheap!

towzer

try to remember that if a project isn't going to make the business money or save the business money, it ain't worth it.

Phil

dsmith

Trouble is some benefits for IT are fairly intangible and difficult to quantify to accountants satisfaction. Sometimes things need to be done simply because they're the "right" thing to do.

rogp

We've recently upgraded from NT4 to a full Windows 2000 AD infrastucture.

To take advantage of that and make workstations more stable and easier to deploy I want to move to Win2K pro on the desktops from the abomination that is Windows 98.

This will mean nothing to those who hold the purse strings until I mention that the people who earn the money will spend less time with stupid dll errors, slowdown due to **** poor memory management and random crashes.

I agree new projects have to offer a clear benefit in order to make them viable but sometimes its nice to be greedy and do something that will just make your own life easier!

Roger

[Edited by rogp - 1/17/2004 2:55:23 PM]

AllanB

Another pitch is to identify a problem and the cost to the company and then the cost and likely implications of solving it.


AllanB