Generating a solid business case and maintaining it throughout a project’s life-cycle is no mean feat. Daily challenges – such as getting the most from a limited budget, operating within tight deadlines and dealing with the competing demands and priorities of multiple stakeholders – can result in goal posts moving, scope creeping and deadlines slipping. And while the team are spinning the various plates, it is all too easy to get caught up in the detail and loose sight of the reason(s) they are being spun in the first place.
Enter stage-right: The Business Case.
The business case in PRINCE2 terms is a document that defines the justification for undertaking a project. It describes the benefits a project is intended to deliver against the costs and risks which will need to be taken along the way.
A strong business case is one where the envisioned benefits outweigh the costs and risks.
The business case should be evaluated at intervals throughout the project in order to test that it is still on a worthwhile course. As such, it is vital that it should employ measurable criteria against which the ongoing viability of the project can be assessed.
It is equally important that the business case should only focus on a core list of benefits that the project must deliver. It is only through resisting the urge to include all suggestions from stakeholders – and instead narrowing the list down to only those with genuine business benefits – that the project will achieve a focused target.
At Semantico, we use a range of workshop exercises to assist in preparing a business case in a focused and manageable way. One of my favorite exercises is described below. Do give it a try and let us know how you get on!
Business case prioritisation exercise
1. Gather together all project stakeholders for a one hour meeting. Where possible include representatives from user groups, suppliers and from the business. Tell them to bring their thinking caps and their wish lists for the project. Offer biscuits.
2. Brainstorm a list of potential benefits that the project could deliver, writing each benefit on a separate post-it-note.
3. Ask a group of the stakeholders (perhaps those representing the business and/or the users) to sort the full list by importance, sticking each post-it-note to a whiteboard with the most important at the top of the board and the least important at the bottom.
4. Give each post-it-note an ‘importance score’ in the bottom left hand corner of each (e.g. if there are ten post-its, give the top most a score of 10, the next one 9 and so on). The key is that no post-it should receive the same score.
5. Now ask a group of the stakeholders (perhaps those representing the suppliers and/or the business this time) to sort the same post-it-notes in order of feasibility – putting the most achieveable of the benefits to the top of the white board and the least to the bottom.
6. Write their ‘feasibility score’ in the bottom right hand corner of each (as in step 4 above).
7. Now chart the post-it-notes on a graph with ‘Importance’ and ‘Feasibility’ as the x and y axis as shown in the example below.
8. Draw attention to the 3 or 4 post-its that occupy the top-right corner of your graph – and confidently proclaim: “here’s what our project will focus on!”
Click for larger image
Of course this exercise will only give an indication of what the project should concern itself with. It will need to be validated with costings and risk analysis. It will also need to be checked against the corporate strategy/vision…
…multiple stakeholders, competing priorities and limited budgets will still come into play. However, with this exercise, you should be a step closer to understanding the key opportunities for your project and therefore be well on the road to developing a focused business case.
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Richard Padley
Managing Director,
Semantico
Excellent post and extremely informative! We have tried the brainstorming method, and achieved much more than was expected from the outset. We also ate far too many biscuits! I agree that in terms of Prince2, the document produced must balance the cost and the risks against any potential benefits.