Identify the Need for a Business Case

The business case documents the need for the project. In this chapter, pay attention to how the business case uses numbers or statistics to make a case for the project.

Developing a business case

Figures don't lie but liars figure.

Attributed to Mark Twain and others

The business case document is a formal, written argument intended to convince a decision maker to approve a project or a program. A well-crafted business case is 'business oriented', and explores all feasible approaches to a given problem to enable the business owners or decision makers to select the option that best serves the organisation; it is typically created as a result of one or more of the following:

• Market demand or trading opportunity,
• Organizational need,
• Customer request,
• Technological advance,
• Legal requirement,
• Ecological or environmental impacts (e.g., carbon footprint reduction), or
• Social need.

A well-structured business case describes the business problem / opportunity to be addressed by the proposed project (or program), the motivations driving the project, and the alternative solutions available.

The potential costs and benefits associated with each alternative solution are also defined to the extent they are known.

When approved, the business case becomes the foundation for the project as it fully documents the reasons for creating the project (the requirements) and the key benefits to be delivered. Once produced, the business case should be formally endorsed by the project sponsor, before the project is chartered and funding allocated.

Successful project managers need to do more than "deliver projects on time and under budget". They also need to contribute to the delivery of outcomes that will help achieve the business benefits expected by the customer. Only business managers can actually manage the business to realise the value/benefits but the PM can help by making sure the project delivers the right outputs in the right way. In many cases this is defined in the business case and a project may be scoped to develop or refine the business case before starting development work.

Source: Pat Weaver, https://www.praxisframework.org/en/resource-pages/weaver-developing-a-business-case
Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 License.