The costs of deploying USM vary with the three different scenarios for applying USM. The more resources you use, the higher the costs. However, most resources are often already in-house, sometimes without the organization being aware of it. Organizations usually lack the right knowledge, not people and tools. USM deployments are therefore primarily based on knowledge transfer.
Scenario 1 ("do-it-yourself") is practically free. Read the USM book (or a summary) and apply what you have learned. This scenario costs a few tens at most.
Scenario 2 ("training") has very limited costs. Training costs a few hundred euros per employee. In the training the participants do a number of exercises with the material, and through discussions they learn to understand their own problems with the USM method. If you have enough in-house experts, you can limit the training to a core group that passes the acquired knowledge on to the rest of the staff.
Scenario 3 ("supported deployment") has more out-of-pocket costs. Hiring external professionals simply costs money. A user organization that joins the user community can use certified, open USM resources (all process and workflow specifications and dozens of templates and guidelines) free of charge, so there are no costs in that. SURVUZ Foundation also encourages the development of off-the-shelf variants of existing, certified instruments (tools), which of course are not free, but which save a lot of energy, time and costs in relation to traditional custom projects.
In addition to the external costs, there are always internal costs. Every improvement initiative takes effort, and therefore money. The size of these internal costs depends on the local situation and the distance to the dot on the horizon.
