The Business Case

Most companies treat each project in isolation, producing for each a budget and cost-justification. Unfortunately, the project to create a set of base code does not have any immediate impact on the business and is difficult to justify to the business in the short term.

Because the base code must be carefully written and extensively tested before being used in the first project, the business benefits only start to appear about a year after the project starts. Therefore, the project should probably be funded as an internal IT project that can then be recovered from the business in small chunks every time a new application is built on the base code. I cannot stress enough that having no base code will invariably result in either nonstandard code, increased development time, or both. At a time when many organizations are employing the services of third-party contractors, it is important for corporate code to conform to the defined standards of that organization. By having a base to start with, you also increase the likelihood of your standards being adhered to.

[Previous] [TOC] [Next]