Business Case complete

Business Case

The project Business Case is a critical document which drives project decision-making in the project. In a programme the Business Case needs to fit with the programme Business Case. It may even be provided by the programme.

Reasons – why the project is needed. What has caused the organization to consider it, rather than the outcomes. Typical reason might be losing the market share, diminishing profit, high production costs, low productivity etc.

Business options – to address the reasons. Three basic options are Do Nothing; Do Minimum and Do Something (more than minimum and up to maximum). Usually Doing something means doing the project.

Expected benefits – measurable benefits expected from the project, the baseline status and how improvement will be measured. The measures will enable benefit tolerances to be established. Different Business options might bring different benefits. Option Do Nothing is always compared with chosen option.

Expected Dis-benefits – that are known will happen as a result of the project. Dis-benefits can not be neglected, because they can negate expected project benefits.

Timescale – of the earliest and latest start and finish dates for the project and when benefits can be achieved. The timescale goes over the project duration, since majority of benefits will be achieved after termination of the project.

Costs – summary from the Project Plan of the total costs with ongoing operations and maintenance costs and their funding. Outline Business Case can contain just estimated project costs, since the Project Plan does not exist yet.

Investment Appraisal - compares project and ongoing operations and maintenance costs with the value of benefits, over a period of time. The investment period might be a fix number of years or the useful life of the products.

Major risks – summary of the aggregated risks and the major risks that would offset the benefits or achievement of objectives. The Project Board needs to understand not only the benefits and the project costs, but also the set of risks that may either reduce/enhance the benefits or reduce/increase the costs.

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Business Case - overview

Brief definition of Business Case, content, purpose of the project and responsibilities....

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