IT Budget Solutions through Enterprise Focused Development, EFD

It frees the organization from financial risks right from the outset of project development and produces the highest quality systems of any methodology.

A world leader in constructive analysis of project failures, The Standish Group, published a study showing that large IT projects fail more often than succeed. Waterfall methodology was listed as one of the main reasons for project failure. Enterprise Focused Methodology addresses the main reasons for project failure and will save government substantial sums of money.

These very large savings should interest government.

A solid example, because of the large number competitors and level playing field, is the personnel system created by Enterprise Focused Development. Enterprise Focused Development was at least ten times less expensive and provided much higher quality than any of its competitors; a 90% savings.

To roughly estimate yearly savings to government, let's conservatively assume that instead of reducing development costs by 90% compared with current methods, it will only reduce development costs by 2%. For a $3 billion dollar state development budget, Enterprise Focused Development will save taxpayers $60 million dollars annually plus give consumers better service.

Additional savings will result from projects not failing that would have otherwise failed by not using Enterprise Focused Development. These constitute at least hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Costs are reduced by savings in time and number of staff required to manage the project. Enterprise Focused Development reduces staff costs by eliminating risk and requirements management work that is optimized by the iteration process. Each quick refocusing of the entire project through Enterprise Focused Development saves many hours of work and prevents costly errors. Savings multiply as iterations progress. In traditional methodologies, problems become evident during the Integration stage, usually too late to save the project from major cost and time overruns.

Very low cost, high quality, fast implementation, low risk, client satisfaction. These are strong motivational factors for implementing Enterprise Focused Development.

Applied to all federal and state government, Enterprise Focused Development will save hundreds of millions of dollars directly, and additional savings will be gained because higher quality systems require much less maintenance and much less frequent rewriting. Enterprise Focused Development savings over the years would amount to billions of dollars.

Here is an additional EFD benefit: Many failed projects should have never been conceived because they were based on flawed logic. Enterprise Focused Development identifies and stops these problems much earlier than waterfall methods, saving taxpayers money that would have been spent completing them and then finding out they had no value. Example: In the 1980's a major and badly conceived project was ordered by one of the deans at a university I worked at. He overruled me and the CIO, demanding that the urgent project go forward. To address this problem, I didn't put any work into the project except to build a data entry module for the main table. Next I explained that stage two of the project was for the dean to begin data entry. Somehow he and his staff never had time for data entry on this urgent project and a few months later acknowledged that the project should be scrapped. Had I not involved him in the project design and testing, many hours would have been wasted completing a worthless project. Enterprise Focused Development not only flushes out problems in valid projects, it also flushes out valueless projects that somehow make it too far into the project queue. Enterprise Focused Development is continuous reality-based vetting that outperforms all other methodologies in saving taxpayers' money.

Categorized by cost, there are three types of IT projects that can benefit by Enterprise Focused Development:

Assumption: Projects with capital outlay over $500,000 require independent project management and reporting.

1. Projects reducible to under $500,000. Projects over $500,000 have additional reporting and oversight requirements that greatly increase cost. Enterprise Focused Development can reduce expenses so effectively that some projects that would have exceeded the $500,000 threshold now drop below it. If project cost can be reduced to under $500,000, then those additional oversight and reporting costs will not exist. Projects that have reduced costs enough to avoid independent project oversight, reporting, and other mandated overhead, will clearly demonstrate cost savings that can be accurately predicted.

2. Over $500,000. Very large cost savings are possible due to the principle that the larger the project is, the more likely Enterprise Focused Development is to out perform other methodologies. Time, scope, budget, risk and customer satisfaction are very likely to be fulfilled with Enterprise Focused Development.

3. Under $500,000. The smaller the project, the more likely it is that all project methodologies will succeed. Savings will still occur with Enterprise Focused Development in all of the project management areas: time, budget, scope, quality, and client satisfaction, risk. Enterprise Focused Development will outperform other methodologies, but will be more valuable in the area of client satisfaction than in budget, scope and time areas. The sheer number small projects have potential for great costs savings through Enterprise Focused Development.

->>The next article summarizes the optimal productivity cycle.

IT Budget Solutions

Reducing Government Cost Through Enterprise Focused Development

Reducing Government Cost Through
Enterprise Focused Development