Cadalyst - October 2008 - (Page 36)

cadmanager By Robert Green Budgeting for Success Start by analyzing what you need for your department, your users, and yourself. I know that many CAD managers — perhaps you’re one of them — hate preparing budgets. They put off budgeting until the last minute, and consequently it is an error-prone process for many. I’m making it my mission this month to change your mind. No matter how much you think you hate budgeting, I want to get you pumped up to prepare a great budget document. Why should you care? Because without money, nothing happens! If you don’t ask for money, you certainly won’t get it. Budgeting is simply what you must do to get things done for your department, your users, and yourself. Let’s get to work. every cent of A great budget starts with a your budget to needs analysis to ensure that achieve maximum you account for everything you effectiveness require. This needs analysis can will be respected take some time, so get started by your senior management staff. now. Continue thinking about all your needs for a couple of weeks to make sure you haven’t forgotten anything. Here are a few hints to get you started: Consumables. Printer cartridges, paper, backup media, memory sticks, toner, cleaning supplies, and pens. It’s easy to miss this stuff, but it all adds up to big money over the course of a year. Annual contracts. Software subscriptions, maintenance agreements for hardware, reprographic contracts, etc. These big-ticket items are very embarrassing to overlook. Training. Training for your users, for yourself, and for partner firms. Training budgets are dynamic, but you must ask for training to get it. Be sure to include training for your professional development, because everything you learn can be leveraged to provide greater user efficiency. Hardware. Even if your information technology (IT) department handles the hardware, you’ll do well to include your budgeted hardware needs in your own budget or make sure that the IT department does. IT departments that don’t work closely with the CAD staff tend to underbudget for graphics cards, monitors, RAM, and disk subsystems. Paying attention to your hardware budget will help 36 Think about Your Needs Scrutinizing you acquire the high-end tools you need to run CAD well. Software. This category includes purchases beyond subscriptions. Think about new software packages, expensive 3D upgrades, and even software utilities. Be creative here and include everything you think might be coming at you during the next year, and don’t forget that many software products require a license for each user. CAD management itself. Many CAD managers find themselves stretched to perform so many different tasks that making time to perform CAD management duties takes a backseat to other priorities. If you budget your own time for providing support, training, creating standards, troubleshooting software issues, or doing any of the myriad activities you do, you might actually get management’s support for what you do. Write It Down Getting all your needs on paper is a giant step toward understanding your budget and being able to present it to your boss. If you don’t write everything down, you’ll miss something! I recommend starting a spreadsheet document that can be refined over time, to organize all your budgeting needs. The goal at first is to simply capture everything in a rough format. Here are a few hints to get your draft budget document in order: Create a tab for each major budget area. One tab for hardware, one for software, etc. This system keeps everything separated and makes each area manageable. I also find that categorizing my budget helps me keep my mental approach to budgeting more organized. Prioritize items. In each budget area, start with the must-have items and make your way down to the we-mayneed items. This approach allows me to show my boss that I understand that money is limited and that I’ve thought through the budget carefully. I’ve also found senior management appreciates the honesty of admitting that not everything on a budget is critical. Assign costs and quantities. For each budget item, you’ll now need a cost and quantity estimate. You can collect these estimates from Web sites, written quotes, old www.cadalyst.com cadalyst October 2008 http://www.cadalyst.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Cadalyst - October 2008

Cadalyst - October 2008 Contents Editor’s Window Cad Central SimCity for Real Designs Spring to Life — 3D Publishing Tools Make File Sharing as Easy as Opening a Book Xi MTower 2P64X — Dual Quad-Core Workstation ArchiCAD 12 — BIM Software Dell Precision M6300 — High-End Mobile Workstation Cad Manager Mcad Modeling Aec Insight Cad Cartoon Issue Indexes Hot Tip Harry

Cadalyst - October 2008

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