The Cost of Labor vs Tooling

2023 was a exiting year for me and our team. I retired at the start of the year and I helped some people deliver their business objectives. In 2024 I start a new chapter in my life and pass my knowledge and experience on.

Out of school in the late 70's, I went to work for Sol Price, founder of Price Club which you now know as Costco. Sol taught me more in 6 months than any University Professor, and one thing was "The Cost of Labor". In the early 80's I was constantly going up to him with the latest technologies and advancements in computing. He hated IT due to the hype and expense. Afterall, he was the only one whome was succesful in the Membership Club business.

In school we learn about Return On Investment (ROI) and Cost Of Ownership (COO), however "hype" can get the best of all of us. So I learned that each time I took a technology item (new computers, software, or systems), I always started with the COO and ROI first in our conversations.

Being in the Systems and Software Delivery business for well over 25 years (and Operations before that), I have found that term "model-driven" was critical to any delivery. Using Compuater Aided Design (CAD) with my Architectural Engineering background, and my Business Finance background, I could take any idea and design the facilities to support it, as well as the Financials to back things up (COO, ROI, etc.). As I retired at a young age from his business, I started my next career in the Y2K and dot-com industry. Later, in the year 2000, I started work for one of the largest Telcom companies in the world where I retired last year.

I had been doing Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE) since the late 80's and when I found out about Unified Modeling Language (UML), I jumped on the hype-train. My first UML tool was ArgoUML, and later went to Rational Rose. So the first thing I did when joining this Telecommunications Company, was teach Architects how to do CASE and UML.

As budgets got tough, the first thing this company did was to squeeze costs on "desktop tooling". As the Technology Manager for CASE, Modeling, and UML in our company, and after Rational was bought by IBM, leading to higher costs, I pushed alternatives. The open-source (free) modeling tool at the time was StarUML (which is no longer "free" today). The other tool was Sparx System's Enterprise Architect (EA).

Let me get to the point here...

Each time an Architect would come to me, they said their "boss" would not approve their Sparx EA purchase. So I asked what the "cost" was, of their time, to NOT use Sparx (or any tool I recommended). They didn't understand the question! They were Engineers or Architects and had no idea about Finances. So I did the math for them.

Let's say your company has a Labor Load Factor of $x. Let's next say it take 'y' time to accomplish task 'z'. Without a tool, let's say it takes '4y' to accomplish 'z'. However, if you had the right tooling and practices, you could accomplish task 'z' in '2y' (half the labor time) and even 1y with effective practices. Therefore labor would be, theoretically, less (half). With Sparx, for example, we doubled and sometime tripled productivity (time-to-delivery, time-to-market or TTM) using this modeling desktop tool. ROI was picked up over a couple weeks and COO was nominal (initial learning curve and annual renewal). I hope you get the point, and do your own math.

Bottomline, with any tooling, platform, or 'snake-oil', make sure you are doing the 'math' first. Make sure you and/or your team understands 'the big picture' and make the right decisions!

I have seen, too many times, that some sales person sell you on something that ends up costing more than before you made such an investment. The problem is not the sales person or their 'tool'. The problem is usually 'you' 😉, so take the responsibility and do IT right.

To learn more, visit my website, TOT Consulting home of UML Operator Channel. More importantly...don't let me sell you on anything you are not ready to do/use.