The Business Case is a central component of any investment management process. If it is deficient you’re whole investment process is deficient. And a deficient investment process will lead to poor projects being approved and poor results delivered.  Getting the business case right starts with understanding it role, purpose and critical success factors.

Currently, there’s too much confusion in an area that should have been clearly understood years ago.

Although business cases have been around for over 25 years, most are still poor and mis-understood. For example, many people see business cases as “financial” documents. Wrong. They’re “strategy” documents. They’re about how a project is going to contribute to the organization’s strategy in business outcome, benefits and value terms.

They’re not a Project Charter or a home for project descriptions and analyses of alternative solutions. This is to mix up the document with the process. The business case/value proposition process should assess alternatives, for example, and these should be thoroughly validated as part of the assessment/validation process, but they’re not part of the value proposition put forward to the approval committee.

To address these and other common confusions about business cases we’ve written “Understanding Business Cases”.

Business cases need to be correct, complete and comparable.

• Correct in that the information they contain is reliable.
• Complete in that all five key questions are fully answered.
• Comparable in that different business cases and value propositions use common financial and other standards.

When we review business cases we often find most fail on at least one criteria.
If you are charged with improving your organization’s business case, you need to read Guide this first.

Benefits

This guide

1. clarifies the true role of the business case
2. spells out the pre-requisites to a successful and reliable business case
3. explains why (and how) business cases should be value focused
4. defines the accountabilities in relation to the business case and its generation
5. illustrates where in the end-to-end evaluation to prioritization process the business case fits
6. advises you where you can find additional material to help you improve your business case and the associated processes

Who should read

1. PMO - to help them upgrade the business case process
2. Investment Committees — to help them understand the true role of the business case
3. Finance — to understand the true role of the business case

Contents

1. Understanding the purpose of a business case — the document
2. Understanding the pre-requisites for a successful business case — the process
3. Understanding the role of a business case
4. Understanding the value of a ‘value-focused business case’
5. Understanding the design of the ‘value-focused business case’
6. Understanding business case accountabilities
7. Understanding the end-to-end business case evaluation, validation and prioritization process
8. Understanding the tools, techniques and templates available.

Bonus

Why business cases only tell part of the story
A Value Delivery Management article by Jed Simms on some of the deficiencies within standard business case approaches.

The value of a ‘value proposition’
A Value Delivery Management article by Jed Simms that spells out the additional value that focusing on generating a ‘value proposition’ lends to a project, how it changes the perspectives and value identified.