Action Plan

This approach can be used to evaluate the costs and benefits of projects without attempting to objectively score benefits projects competing for the same funding. This process is used to sell a project, to articulate the costs and benefits of the project to constituents, and to later determine whether a project should be sustained.  The steps to follow when performing a Value of Investment assessment for a proposed project follow:

1. Estimate Project Costs (Project TCO)
   To properly implement and support the technology project, all initial and ongoing direct costs need to be budgeted. However, to determine the relative value of the proposed project, budgeted costs need to be annualized and indirect costs (user overhead time) need to be considered; these combined annualized costs are the project TCO. CoSN has provided a free Project Cost Estimator to help you to identify and summarize all of these costs.
   
2. Calculate Anticipated Savings and Revenues
   Most projects, even those focused on qualitative benefits such as student achievement, have some cost savings. The Project Cost Estimator allows you to identify and apply any IT infrastructure and support savings to lower the project cost, and the VOI Project Benefits Worksheet will help you to identify other dollar savings, user productivity enhancements and increased revenue, and apply these as benefits.
   
3. Measure “Qualitative” Benefits
   Since the business of schools is education and schools operate for the public good, many or most of the benefits of implementing technology can not be measured in terms of dollars; we call these qualitative benefits. For these to be considered benefits they must directly or indirectly affect the school or district strategic plan - mission, goals or mandates. CoSN has provided a VOI Project Benefits worksheet to help you to identify and apply these qualitative benefits. The suggested approach to calculating these anticipated benefits is:
   • Determine school/district goals
   • Align anticipated project benefits with the appropriate goals
     
   • State the anticipated project benefits in measurable terms
   An example of measurable benefits applied to school goals can be found here.
4. Assess Risk
   Risk, is more appropriately viewed as the probability of success for the proposed project. Understanding risk factors helps to avoid pitfalls that may be encountered during implementation and assuring plans are in place to achieve the stated measurable benefits.
   
5. Was it worth it? - Evaluate Results
   Once your wildly successful project has been implemented, you have an opportunity to objectively review actual costs and benefits versus the projected costs and benefits. This will allow you to concisely respond to the project skeptics. Since the anticipated costs and benefits were stated in measurable terms, the actual results can be measured:
   • Actual costs versus anticipated costs
   • Actual savings or revenues versus anticipated savings revenue
   • Actual measurable benefits versus anticipated benefits