3 ms·

>If I am running a business that is looking at what projects to fund for the next year, and one of those projects is a software project with an unknowable time

>If I am running a business that is looking at what projects to fund for the next year, and one of those projects is a software project with an unknowable time to completion vs (for example) opening a new store, with a well known time to complete, why would I ever pick the software project? It has a completely unknown ROI! Because the benefits of the software project would far outweigh the benefits of a new store? With the completion of the software project you could open an order of magnitude more stores? Completion of the software project will increase the profitability of existing stores such that they make more than a new store at existing (hypothetical, since the store is not open yet) profitability?

cpitman 10y ago
And that would be great, as long as doing the software project doesn't take several orders of magnitude more time. You have to be able to estimate the project with some confidence interval to know if it is worth it. If opening a store takes 6-9 months, and we have a software project that can make all of my 100 stores ~10% more efficient that needs 2-4 years, then the software project looks a lot more feasible! (ignoring that calendar time is not exactly cost, and that we may need shorter term wins to stay in business) The problem is if, when asked for an estimate, we say "I don't know and I never will know until I'm done". Now I don't know if stores will be more efficient 2 weeks or 20 years from now.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  Too bad, so sad. How can you estimate something that isn't done? You can throw some words out there, but they are likely meaningless. If you are operating solely on predictive ROI, then maybe investing in ambitious software projects is not for your business. >Now I don't know if stores will be more efficient 2 weeks or 20 years from now. That is your problem, not the software's or of the people creating the software.

cpitman 10y ago

And that would be great, as long as doing the software project doesn't take several orders of magnitude more time. You have to be able to estimate the project with some confidence interval to know if it is worth it. If opening a store takes 6-9 months, and we have a software project that can make all of my 100 stores ~10% more efficient that needs 2-4 years, then the software project looks a lot more feasible! (ignoring that calendar time is not exactly cost, and that we may need shorter term wins to stay in business) The problem is if, when asked for an estimate, we say "I don't know and I never will know until I'm done". Now I don't know if stores will be more efficient 2 weeks or 20 years from now.

jsprogrammer 10y ago
Too bad, so sad. How can you estimate something that isn't done? You can throw some words out there, but they are likely meaningless. If you are operating solely on predictive ROI, then maybe investing in ambitious software projects is not for your business. >Now I don't know if stores will be more efficient 2 weeks or 20 years from now. That is your problem, not the software's or of the people creating the software.