A Business Case Analysis Methodology for Complex Information Technology Programs
Skelley, P¹; Martindale, P^2
1PRICE Systems; ²Department of Homeland Security

With global security concerns growing in a post 9/11 world, countries are cautious of visitors. Tensions are high; however, there are still many people who wish to explore and learn from a foreign culture; the U.S. wants to welcome foreign visitors who wish to study, teach, or exchange ideas. A next generation system to replace the current system (SEVIS I) is being developed in the U.S. to monitor student and exchange visitors from foreign countries. This system will collect information on foreign visitors and their status during their studies or work in the U.S. The system will have interfaces to other border control systems to exchange biometric information in the interest of national security; but will also allow freedom to those who wish to experience and visit the United States. In order for this system to meet the new robust set of requirements, the program office took a ground-up development approach. As part of that process, the program office had to estimate the lifecycle cost for development and total program, as well as the quantifiable benefits from the new system.

The SEVIS Integrated Product Team (IPT) included a cost team that used a systematic approach to arrive at a development cost and built a mixed lifecycle cost - where SEVIS I transitions into SEVIS II - from historical SEVIS I data. The team estimated these costs for four Alternatives of SEVIS II. Developing a Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) as an official document for a government business case analysis was required to gain approval to proceed as well as complete government funding. Results showed that the alternative to develop SEVIS II from the ground up was most cost effective due to a more concentrated compressed effort/schedule to provide the needed functionality some of which could not feasibly be completed by altering the existing SEVIS I. The cost team assured the SEVIS II business case passed the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Exhibit 300 submission by providing a Cost Benefit Analysis narrative document and inputting numbers into the SEVIS II Exhibit 300 submission system.

This presentation will cover an overview of the SEVIS program. Then it will show the process used to perform the tradeoffs as part of the alternatives analysis, and the development of the key elements of the Cost Benefit Analysis. This complete process was successful and can be used for any software program seeking justification for funding.