Building a Business Case

Once an idea for a project has been identified you will want to articulate the details of your idea in a proposal that clearly demonstrates the value of moving forward with the project. This proposal is called a business case. In it you want to assure that all strategic and decision-making information is captured and presented in a manner that can be evaluated against your strategic plan and against other or competing proposals. The evaluation will determine whether or not you want and can move forward with the project.

Typical of most organizations is that the management team has more ideas and project proposals than the organization has in resources to complete them. Often, when presented with project proposals, internal competition can lead to approvals based on personalities and politics. And that can have a negative influence on the organization in many ways. A business case form and an evaluation process that is built around the strategic plan will assure a fair and transparent assessment guaranteeing that the projects selected best suite your organization's goal(s).  The key to success here is both a scoring process and a business case that have been derived from the strategic plan. See Figure 1: The Business Case Funnel.

While all project proposals may bring some degree of value to the organization, it can be said that not all projects are created equal. Some will deliver greater value to the organization than others. Some will demand a higher priority with regards to performance (quality), cost, and schedule. The business case must also provide reasoning for prioritization. When done following the strategy management implementation process the selection process becomes quantifiable and unarguable.

To provide an example, let’s assume three things:

1. Your Business: You operate or intend to build an Italian restaurant.
2. Your Goal: You are committed to being recognized as serving the highest quality authentic Italian foods in an authentic Italian environment with franchised restaurant operations nationwide.
3. Your Primary Strategy: Focused-Differentiation because you have a targeted market with a specific demographic and you cannot provide the highest quality authentic Italian foods for low cost.

To be completed