KSB 2.1 — Negotiate and agree digital and technology specialism delivery budgets with those with decision-making responsibility

Situation

While working with both internal stakeholders, and external clients such as Client_1, technology decisions often involve financial considerations as well as technical feasibility. In particular, the Client_1 service website upgrade required a structured proposal outlining the scope of work, development phases, and estimated cost of implementing improvements to the system’s SAP integration and website functionality.

Task

My responsibility was to translate the technical work required into a clear delivery plan that could be understood and approved by non-technical decision-makers. This included estimating development effort, structuring the work into phases, and presenting a budget that balanced the client’s operational needs with realistic development costs.

Action

I analysed the technical requirements of the existing system, including the interaction between the Joomla website and the SAP ERP queries that provided repair and service data. Based on this analysis I created a phased development proposal outlining cosmetic improvements, backend data restructuring, and longer-term architectural improvements. Each phase included estimated development hours and associated costs to allow stakeholders to prioritise work within their available budget.

In addition to client-facing budgeting, I also evaluated internal technology investment decisions, such as recommending GitHub Pro as a managed version control platform for 100AND10%. I compared the operational costs and risks of self-hosted infrastructure with the relatively low cost of a managed platform and presented this analysis to management to support an informed decision.

Result

These activities enabled decision-makers to understand both the technical and financial implications of the proposed work. The structured proposals allowed stakeholders to prioritise development phases and approve technology investments with a clear understanding of cost, scope, and expected benefits. This ensured that technology delivery aligned with both business objectives and available budgets.