Recently, I added a function in my company's leave application to allow an applied leave to be added to Outlook Calendar. It looks like an integration until you realize all I did was to package the leave information into a .ICS file that can be downloaded and opened inside Outlook.
Outlook intepretes the file and creates an event based on the information contained therein.
Nothing big deal. It was done up pretty quickly and since this is an intranet, everyone has Outlook installed anyway.
Now, so far I can only add the event by asking Outlook to open up the .ICS file. But there is no way to remove an event using .ICS file (not that i know of, anyway). So management launched into a discussion on whether we should implement the "Remove from Outlook" function when staff cancels their leaves.
They are worried, and anticipated (rightly) that staff would ask for "remove" function when they see the "add" function.
But I am wondering. To be able to do removal would require integration of some sort and perhaps 10 times more effort in research and development. The add function in comparision is up and running in matters of man-day effort.
So why is the management worried about having to answer to staff's request about removal function? Can't they just say no to it?
Would we want to keep a useful function out of the hands of our users just because it cannot cover 100% of their requirement? To me having a add function satisfies 90% of my Outlook Calendar needs. I just want to add an event to Outlook when I apply for a leave, without having to type in those date and time details manually! My add function does that pretty well, and I would rather have it implemented for me than not.
So what if i cant remove from Outlook when I cancel leave? Let's look at some numbers:
I have about 20 days leaves each year. So I would on average apply for about 10 leave requests in one year.
By having an Add to Outlook function, I save manual adding of Outlook event 10 times per year.
Assume I take about 2 minutes to manually adding Outlook event.
Amount of time I saved: 2 mins * 10 leaves = 20 minutes/year
Effort to develop a Add to Outlook function: 5 man-days.
So, in a population of say 1000 staff, for the company i would save:
20 minutes x 1000 = 20,000 minutes/year = 14 man-days.
The ROI would be:
14 man-days / 5 man-days (development effort) = 2.8 times
How many times do I cancel my leaves? 3 times per year I guess.
Effort to develop a Remove from Outlook function: 30 man-days.
Time needed to delete an Outlook event? 2 minutes.
So to delete 3 events, I would take 6 minutes/year
So, in a population of say 1000 staff, for the company i would save:
6 minutes x 1000 = 6000 minutes/year = 4 man-days.
The ROI would be:
4 man-days / 30 man-days (development effort) = 0.133 times
The ROI for implementing a Add function is 2.8.
While ROI for implementing a Remove function is 0.133 .
By adding the functionality of Remove to the Add function, I would reduce my ROI from 2.8 to just (2.8+0.133 )/2 = 1.4665
Is it really worth doing it?
