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Dave, I believe I pointed out the necessity of educating the bosses in a subsequent paragraph: "...your management needs to hear the good, bad, and ugly of the TT story first. Then let _them_ decide if they want to save zillions." And... Go ahead with TigerTools but make sure you have your boss's signature on the authorization letter...and take the letter home! Yes, managing risk is what managers are supposed to do. But adopting a risk management strategy based on the use of Fast400 (unknown, unproven, maybe unethical, likely a violation of IBM licensing) starts you out with one foot in the grave. A break-even analysis is no better than the combination of the "expectation" (estimated $ x confidence level). If IBM PTF's out Fast400, your BEA has been trashed. My points: 1. I won't use Fast400, nor will I suggest its use to my customers. 2. If you want to use Fast400, you'd better have a detailed discussion (including IBM's comments) with the highest-ranking people you can find in your organization first. 3. You should have their specific written authorization before you proceed with downloading/using Fast400. -----Original Message----- From: midrange-l-admin@midrange.com [mailto:midrange-l-admin@midrange.com]On Behalf Of David.X.Kahn@gsk.com Sent: Thursday, November 08, 2001 6:04 AM To: midrange-l@midrange.com Subject: Re: "Gamble my career"? Reeve wrote: > So, if you install this chimera and something bad happens to your > system, do you think your boss, or the owner, or the board of > directors will applaud and say, "Hey, nice try!" Sorry, the line > for the lynching party forms at the end. If one of my valued, > long-time people even downloaded TT without talking to me, it would > be the end of that career. Look at it another way. If your company is about to pay a chunk of green screen tax do you not have an obligation to your bosses at least to make them aware of the existence of a possible alternative? Your memo will of course point out both the ethical issues and the business risk and may well recommend that you do not purchase it, but how are your managers meant to make a decision without a full awareness of the alternatives? I wouldn't like to be in a position where we had just shelled out big bucks on an upgrade and then a week later my boss came to me and said, "Hey, I've just found out about this magic tool called Fast400 that might have saved us that upgrade. I had in look in the midrange-l archive and it seems you knew all about it. How come you didn't see fit to mention it to me?" Every decision you make carries an element of risk, but managing risk is something managers are supposed to do. If you regard Fast400 simply as a means of deferring, rather than avoiding, the green screen tax it should be possible to calculate the payback period. There are hidden costs to take into account. These include possibly damaging your relationship with IBM (although you don't have to go out of your way to tell them) and having to take extra caution with PTFs and new releases, possibly missing out on some features and bug fixes that you'd really like to have. All these things you should be able to put a figure on, and having done that it then becomes possible to work out how long the tool has to function for the company to break even. Dave... "Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow." - Oscar Wilde ======================================================= The opinions expressed in this communication are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer. _______________________________________________ This is the Midrange Systems Technical Discussion (MIDRANGE-L) mailing list To post a message email: MIDRANGE-L@midrange.com To subscribe, unsubscribe, or change list options, visit: http://lists.midrange.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/midrange-l or email: MIDRANGE-L-request@midrange.com Before posting, please take a moment to review the archives at http://archive.midrange.com/midrange-l.
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