How the Business Case Defines Your Project

Preparing for Change

In a recent post I asked the question “Why do too many projects fail to deliver their objectives even though project management best practices appear to be used?” I suggested that the three most common causes are:

• Poor project planning;
• A weak business case;
• Ineffective top management involvement and support.

This week I examine the second root cause: a weak business case. This develops during the early stages of a project; skipping these stages or racing through them is a recipe for failure.

One of the first things you need to know when starting a new project is the benefits of the proposed business change and how to communicate those benefits to the organisation. If you don’t know these things there’s little point proceeding. The business case is developed during the early stages of a project and outlines the why, what, how and who necessary to decide if it is worthwhile continuing a project. Whilst the proposal focuses on why you want a project it will by definition only contain an outline of the project: business need, expected benefits, strategic fit, products produced, broad estimates of time and cost, and impact on the organisation.

In contrast the business case, which is first developed during an initial investigation, contains much more detail and should be reviewed by the project sponsor and key stakeholders before being accepted, rejected, cancelled, deferred or revised. Depending on the scale of the business change the business case may need further development as part of a detailed investigation. Therefore, it should be developed incrementally so that time and resources aren’t unnecessarily wasted on the impracticable.

Preparing the business case involves an assessment of:

• Business opportunity;
• Benefits;
• Costs including investment appraisal;
• Likely (technical) solutions;
• Timescale;
• Impact on operations;
• Capability to deliver the project outcomes.

These issues are an important part of the business case; expressing the problems with the current situation and demonstrating the benefits of the new vision. The business case brings together the benefits, disadvantages, costs, and risks of the current situation and future vision so that executive management can decide if the project should proceed. Far too many projects start life as a walk in the fog, which is fine in itself, but never see the light of day or stumble along aimlessly for too long because the clarity of scope, timescale, cost, and benefits are not defined adequately during the initial stages of the project.

Image: Renjith Krishnan/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

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• My first Bain project with real responsibility: My life as a management consulting star and partner (firmsconsulting.com)
• The Project Process Framework (martinwebster.eu)