What Should an Engineer Address when 'Selling' IPv6 to Executives?

Tue Mar 5 20:09:50 UTC 2013

On Tue, Mar 5, 2013 at 12:55 PM, Mukom Akong T. <mukom.tamon at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've found myself thinking about what ground an engineer needs to cover in
> order to convince the executives to approve and commit to an IPv6
> Deployment project.
>
> I think such a presentation (15 slides max in 45 minutes) should cover the
> following aspects:
>
> a) Set the strategic context: how your organisation derives value from IP
> networks and the Internet.
>
> b) Overview of the problem: IPv4 exhaustion
>
> c) Implications of IPv4 Exhaustion to your organization’s business model.
>
> d) Introduction of IPv6 as a solution to IPv4 exhaustion.
>
> e) Understanding the risks involved.
>
> f) How much will deploying IPv6 will cost.
>
> g) Call to action.

My experience has been that this model fail to _sell_ IPv6 to
non-technical executives. Non-technical executives have 3 questions
you must effectively answer:

1. What is the real dollar cost of doing the project (including both
up-front and currently indefinite ongoing costs of dual stack. And
don't forget to price out risk!).

2. What is the real dollar cost of not doing the project. (i.e.
customers you expect to lose because you didn't do it. Don't suggest
that IPv6 will allow you to avoid acquiring more IPv4. That's not yet
true and if you say, "It will be in 5 years" the exec will respond,
"great, come see me in 5 years.")

3. What is the opportunity cost of doing/not doing the project.

Implicitly they'll also be looking for the answer to a fourth
question: Do you know WTF you're talking about? If you assure them
it's all peaches and cream with tiny costs and no opportunity cost,
the answer is, "no."

You get maybe 2 slides of summary on the technology and what it's for.
If they want to know more, they'll ask. Everything else should focus
on answering the above three questions.

Regards,
Bill Herrin

-- 
William D. Herrin ................ herrin at dirtside.com  bill at herrin.us
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