In this case, the downside to saving money by laying off expensive experience is clear. Things like time developers spend doing traditional IT tasks are clear

In this case, the downside to saving money by laying off expensive experience is clear. Things like time developers spend doing traditional IT tasks are clear to developers. But it's amazing how little of that is visible to executives. They certainly don't get an hour-by-hour breakdown of where developers spend their time. And the time to develop software is notoriously difficult to estimate even using the best techniques out there -- and most people just eyeball it. So executives really can't quantify the loss of productivity, they just hear programmers bitching.