On the classification and estimation of costs in information technology

The complexity of IT in modern organizations is generally quite high and the costs of IT are correspondingly complex. An overview of available publications shows that there is relatively research done on the development of cost models for IT. The systematic gathering and classi cation of IT costs is often overlooked in organizations. The current thesis addresses many of the issues associated with the complex nature of IT costs, and proposes a cost model for IT. The necessary details of IT costs are de ned in order to facilitate the collection of complete IT cost data. Categories for IT costs are proposed. The categorization is based on how modern IT is usually built up in organizations, with each category representing a distinct part of IT. Finally a method of estimating IT costs is demonstrated. The method uses simple probability densities to represent cost estimates. A simple example is shown that demonstrates that with only a few cost estimates using probability densities, the sum of the estimates will result in a distribution that closely follows the Gaussian distribution