I understand that people have issues with charge back models, but at
some institutions that's just the way it works whether you like it or not
(I can name a few universities like this off the top of my head).  And my
guess is that the more heat colleges and universities take for their
tuition prices, the more this will become the norm (just my two cents).
 That being said charging back to other departments isn't the only reason
you might be interested in creating cost calculations.

   - *Open Positions*.  We had an empty position here in the library.
    After doing cost and timeline calculations for a couple of projects we
   realized how much more productive we could be once we hired that position.
    We were also able to figure out how much it was costing us by having that
   position's manager fulfill the role.
   - *Working for Other Libraries*.  There are other libraries in the area
   that are looking to do things that we are already staffed to do.
   - *Grants*.  One project we're in the process of estimating right now is
   applying for a grant.  Doing organized, well thought out cost and timeline
   calculations can help strengthen a grant proposal.
   - *Showing Off Your Work*.  Quite often libraries look around, realize
   they have done work, but find it hard to articulate what that work is, what
   it cost them, and what benefits they received from that work.  At one
   institution I worked for they chose to ditch BlackBoard for Moodle.
    Technically they paid me more than their subscription for BlackBoard, but
   the added features they received were worth it.  Cost estimates, project
   charters, and requirement documents would have helped prove that.

Personally I think libraries should be doing these types of calculations
for every project (yes I recognize that's probably not possible).  The more
we are required to prove that what we're doing is beneficial to the
communities we are part of, the more we will need this type of information.

Rosy




On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 9:51 AM, Nate Vack <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 3:24 PM, Eric Larson <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
> > We do an honorable amount of project estimation and time-tracking here,
> too.
>
> s/honorable/horrible/
>
> ;-)
>
> -n
>