Winning the Budget Game: How to Get the Money You Need for IT Every Time

Half Day Morning
(9:00 am-12:30 pm)

Grand Ballroom A

LISA14: Culture
M5
Nicole Forsgren Velasquez, Utah State University
Description: 

Getting the resources your team needs is a matter of knowing just enough about finances to communicate what you want, and explaining how it will benefit the company. The trick is to speak their language. Learn the basics of budgeting, benchmarking, resource allocation, cost-benefit analysis, and communicating costs using tools like net present value. Understand the importance of your business cycle and the difference between cap-ex and op-ex. The course will also cover spreadsheet magic, like pivot tables and pivot charts.

Who should attend: 

Sysadmins who want to save their IT budgets, and need to learn how to speak “MBA”. This tutorial will help you do just that, arming you with the right approach and the right tools to go to management and communicate your needs and the alternatives available, so that you’re a part of the budget conversation instead of just the recipient of budget decisions.

Take back to work: 
  • Understand differences between cap-ex and op-ex, and leverage differences in business cycles and settings.
  • Write a basic capital proposal, including relevant value analysis 
  • Draft a budget, complete with impacts.
  • Compare alternatives and communicate relevant costs.
  • Fundamental understanding of pivot tables and pivot charts.
Topics include: 
  • Capital expenses vs. operational expenses: knowing the difference, and knowing why the difference matters
  • Important business cycles and dates
  • Comparing alternatives and communicating relevant costs
  • Cost-benefit analysis
  • Budgeting, including drafting a budget, burn rates, and standard costs and variances
  • Capital planning, including net present value, PV index, internal rate of return, and payback period
  • Pivot tables and pivot charts
Presentation Type: 
Training