The Knowledge Network now has 300 documents, a wide variety of checklists, calculators, tools and templates to help with your IT business needs. It's growing quickly, and it can be easy to overlook some of the documents. So here's another look at some of the helpful tools that you may not have seen.

How to Sell a Data Warehouse to Upper Management Checklist. The typical ROI-based business case will not work well for selling a data warehousing initiative to upper management. While there may be some long-term savings that can be quantified, they will almost certainly be outweighed by costs. The following checklist is a list of key points you should highlight when you go before any group of upper-level managers to pitch a data warehousing initiative.

Reduction in Force Calculator. This calculator is designed to help you with the unpleasant but sometimes necessary task of meeting a mandated reduction-in-force target. Obviously, the decisions about whom to lay off will not be based on salary alone. But once you have figured out some options, this calculator will quickly show you whether they meet the target.

“Getting Started as an Independent Computer Consultant” - Chapter 4. In this book, author Mitch Paioff shows technology professionals how to start, promote and manage a successful computer consulting business. Entitled "How to Market Yourself Effectively,” this chapter encourages upcoming consultants to have a “Unique Selling Proposition,” prospect for leads, advertise and sell themselves well.

IT Business Edge's Project Proposal Template. This simple, three-page template covers the basics of top-level project justification. For larger projects, it should be accompanied or followed by more intensive financial projections, but for smaller projects this proposal will prepare a prioritization committee or group of managers to green-light a proposed project for formal business requirements and functional specs.

Balanced Scorecard Template. This Excel Workbook contains several templates to help you develop a Balanced Scorecard. The templates are clean, simple spreadsheets that you can modify easily. Additionally, the templates are arranged in sequence according to the flow of the development process.

SaaS vs. On Premise TCO Calculator. The purpose of this calculator is to let you quickly compare the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to the TCO of an on-premise solution. The calculator presents two results: TCO, and annual costs, which is the sum of the annual licensing/subscription fees, annual management costs, and the total cost of start-up and upgrades amortized over the number of years in the calculation.