Bob Lewis
Columnist

Project over head, or just project overhead?

analysis
Aug 12, 20031 min

Dear Bob ... My employer is outsourced to a consortium that employs the Catalyst methodology. Would you explain to me how this much overhead can be good for a small (under $40k) project? Or is it possibly being applied incorrectly? I am very curious because it appears to me to drive up our costs significantly with no payoff. - Catalyzed Dear Catalyzed ... Understand, I have nothing to do with the Cata

Dear Bob …

My employer is outsourced to a consortium that employs the Catalyst methodology. Would you explain to me how this much overhead can be good for a small (under $40k) project? Or is it possibly being applied incorrectly? I am very curious because it appears to me to drive up our costs significantly with no payoff.

– Catalyzed

Dear Catalyzed …

Understand, I have nothing to do with the Catalyst methodology (and in fact, this is the first I knew that such a thing even existed). It isn’t a product of IT Catalysts, Inc.

That disclaimer out of the way, and entirely unencumbered by the specific facts of your situation, I’d say $4,000 would be the maximum (depending, of course, on what you include in “overhead”). Small projects generally don’t require a lot of coordination, status meetings and so on.

But again, lacking specific knowledge of the situation it’s hard to be confident.

– Bob

Hey, not every piece of advice I give has to be long …

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