May 21, 2009

Three Ways to Secure Funding for Your IT Project

Posted by Brad Egeland

You’ve got a perfect idea for project that will bring immense wealth or cost savings for your company. Well, maybe not that extreme, but you think it’s needed, it will help you or your team or your department and you’d like to see it get approved. How do you make that happen? How do you get the funding directed your way when the dollars are handed out?

Timing is Everything – Fiscal Year Planning

As the heading states…timing is often everything. If your company’s fiscal year ends on 9/30, then anywhere between 9/1 and 12/31 is not going to be the best time to ask for new funds for a project. It needs to either happen while the new fiscal year planning is beginning so you can get the proper funds allocated or it needs to happen after the first quarter of the new fiscal year is over so the company has an idea of how ahead or behind they are on the forecast.

To get it in the FY budget, you will need to have already performed some sort of scope and estimate on the project and present as much detail as possible. One year Rockwell Collins had all of their PMs do that for each business unit in preparation for their next FY. We scoped out in pretty solid detail all of the next year’s planned projects so they had their best estimate ever heading into the FY budgeting season. The good news is that helped them to plan very accurately for their IT expenditures for the next FY….which was beginning on 10/1. The bad news is that FY beginning on 10/1 was for FY 2002. Meaning this activity was performed between July and September 2001. And we all know what happened in September 2001 that devastated most companies that had any stake in the aviation industry – which RC did have – for quite some time. It essentially squashed all projects and IT funding for quite awhile…but we would have been well prepared otherwise. Oh well.

Cost Benefit Analysis

Perform cost benefit analysis on your project, the solution it will provide and how that will benefit your department and the company. Identify any cost savings, staff reductions, productivity gains, profitability increase realized, etc. and document it well. Showing executive management what your project will mean to the bottom line rather than just describing what it will do or perform will go a long way toward convincing the powers that be to shift funds your way for the engagement you need to jumpstart.

Present, Present, Present

You know the saying…. ”the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” It’s very very true. The whiniest employees get heard the most – even if they aren’t always competent. And the individuals asking the loudest for their funding will get the most attention. Whenever and however possible, present information to upper management on your project and how and who it will benefit. Set up a meeting….invite the right people…put together a PowerPoint…buy donuts. Do whatever you have to do, but get the information on your project in front of the right people often and do it in person whenever necessary. It’s much harder to turn someone down in person.

Summary

There’s no guarantee you’ll get your project funded…there never is. Nothing is really a sure thing. But doing these things at a minimum certainly won’t hurt your cause and I’ve found them to be very beneficial on projects that I felt were important. If you have additional suggestions, please feel free to comment and share them here.

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