Enterprise Level Deployment of Delphix Determining the Project Budget

Hi Again!  In today's post I discuss conducting a resource budget analysis. Prior to the purchase of the Delphix Software the evaluation team would most likely have completed an ROI and a TCO analysis to help justify the purchase. These two documents and the folks that worked on them are a good place to start to define your Delphix Project Budget requirements. If you are new to Delphix technology, please go to https://www.delphix.com or just search for Delphix online.

To bring you up to speed from the last posts we completed most of the pre planning aspects of the project and we are down to the final two sections. This week I will walk you through the steps of defining the project IT Budget.

To catch up, please see my previous blog for the Enterprise level Deployment of Delphix.

You have Delphix Now What  Delphix Goals and Objectives  The Solution Design - Part1 The Solution Design Part 2  The Solution Design - The Transition Process

The Solution Design - Add Masking  The High Level Time Line  The Requirements Analysis  Impact Analysis

Overview of Project Budgeting

During the pre-planning stage of a project, budgeting is the determination of costs associated of defined activities. The steps associated to budgeting are dependent on the project time frame and resources expected to work on the tasks. But in most cases expect to create a cost model that includes labor and non-labor cost information. Spreadsheets work great for project small to medium scope and a Delphix implementation usually falls into one of these categories.  However, Project management tools can be used for any size project and if you are versed in any of them you will probably wish to track budget with that tool.  Here are some rules of thumb that I follow when completing working the project budget.

1. Remember to include the risk analysis from the previous blog:  Be sure to budget for the tasks where the risk was inherent.

2. Document the assumptions: for example if the cost of hardware was quoted at one rate but not yet purchased include the quoted price and the assumption that the price will not change.

3. Gather input from the department managers: In all instances please engage the department managers for input and direction, they know the staff and work at hand for their teams.

4. A large component of the budget will be labor costs: it is important to get buy in from the people actually doing the work.

5. Set aside time to have a stakeholders review: and hold budget review before during and after the project.

This blog is by no means intended to teach budgeting or project management. If you need additional information on these topics you may need to invest in professional training.

Finding a reporting method that suits the company needs

The company may already have a process defined for reporting project resource budgets. If this is the case your life is made very easy. They may have a particular format the like to have all project budgeting follow. The reports may even feed into a corporate project management portfolio. It is important to ensure your budgeting forecast and reports match those in format and application software.

Publish your business level operating model

If you have the operating and rollout model in mind find a way to put it down in a picture. The picture should provide a starting point and a final picture of what departments and business leads of the organization will have authority to approve the deployment and lifecycle operations of the Delphix architecture. Below is my standard operating model for an enterprise deployment of Delphix.