Estimate Issue Cost

Intent

Find out how much a given issue costs in units of money or effort in a period or for every occurrence.

Description

Finding out the cost of an issue usually requires estimation or guessing, so there are uncertainty and probability involved.

For example, if a server needs to be rebooted once every 24hrs and an operator needs 30 minutes to perform this reboot (and corresponding activities), then you can approximate the cost of this problem for, let’s say, a month:

5 workdays × 4 weeks × 30 min = 10hrs of operator’s effort.

If you multiply with (an approximated or averaged) wage, you get problem cost.

If possible, try to measure or observe instead of guessing or estimating.
If you cannot determine real numbers, and you need to guess, estimate or approximate, use Explicit Assumption.

Related patterns

Estimate in Interval
Estimate in intervals, giving lower and upper bounds.
Explicit Assumption
Compensate missing facts (especially requirements, goals, estimates, opinions) by explicit (usually written) assumptions about those facts.
Expect Denial
Some people will oppose your findings, will whitewash or sugarcoat issues, problems or root causes. Regardless on how careful you prepared your analysis, they will try to diminish or attack your findings.

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