Defending the IT budget
If we are living in the age of technology, why do very few IT practitioners seem to be able to adequately construct, explain and defend their numbers when it is budget time?
Operations budgets seem to remain reasonably predictable but are still subject to year-over-year variation in investment requirements. Development budgets are more difficult to construct, manage and defend. There is a readily-available standard body of knowledge covering project cost estimation and scheduling, but in many cases it would seem that – where drafting the annual budget request is concerned-these tools are forgotten or ignored. When it comes to budgeting, there is usually built – in institutional tension between budget groups and IT groups that must be overcome if both sides are to be satisfied.
Transparency is the stated goal on both sides but it seems to be rare. How do you address the challenges of winning your budget? Are final budget decisions made behind closed doors and do you always come up short? Is detailed documentation a requirement, and is providing it seen as an asset or liability? What is the effect on budgeting of important projects that are “king makers” for powerful managers; and what happens when these projects compete for budget? Does prioritization hold up under pressure?
