Is your organization commencing a huge project to develop a new product? If yes, then you are on the right page. Sometimes, projects fail to produce the results even though the best practices of Project Management are made into use. It might be because of a poor business case written for Project Management. If you write a strong and complete business case, you can make sure that your investment is worthwhile. This article is all about how to write a business case in a solid way. If you want to know more about the facts and importance of the business case for Project Management, you can keep on reading below.
 

What is a Business Case?
 

Nowadays, the board and senior management are concentrating on investments that bring true business value within the organization. Depending on the business value they deliver, various initiatives such as factory relocations, business ventures, innovation, IT investments, products, and services can be accepted or rejected. In order to get the project approved by the board or management, it is very important to create a business case that demonstrates the benefits and requirements of the project on finalizing it.

Even though you are very obvious about the benefits of a project, certain stakeholders and decision-makers might not be so clear about it as they deal with various business tasks and objectives that are required to be completed. Only a well-written business case can make your project stand out from the competing priorities in the company and it is the only way to get your project approved. Now, what is a business case in Project Management? It is a procedure used to examine the project stages, alternatives, opportunities, as well as financial investment to make a recommendation for the right course of action that would form business value. 
 

What is the Need of a Business Case?
 

The business case includes an assessment of the following:
 

• Benefits and risk
   
• Business issues or opportunity
   
• Technical solutions
   
• Costs along with investment appraisal
   
• Influence on operations
   
• The potential of the organization to produce the project results
   
• Timescale
   

In a business case, these problems of a project are a crucial part. They demonstrate the advantages of the new business vision by conveying the issues with the present situation. The business case has been prepared to bring the costs, disadvantages, benefits, and risks of the future vision and present situation so that the executive management can know whether the project would be able to take ahead. 
 

What is the difference between a Business Case and Business Plan?
 

When it comes to the business case, it is one of the robust decision-making tools that should be used by the leadership team of the organization. With this decision-making tool, the leadership team gets an assessment of the benefits, investments, and risks of a specific project. In fact, a business case is an answer to what is going to happen if we continue with the decision of this investment. It has been carefully written in a document in order to recommend a decision-maker to approve the investment. The process of the business case helps enterprises execute projects, changes, as well as innovations. It is a step to the success of the project along with the involvement of seniors. In fact, it dictates the business value of the project to make the stakeholders take decisions. There are certain fundamental questions that are added to the business case.

One of the practical questions is “can the business proposal be adopted as planned, budget, delivered on time, and give the expected results?” The business case is actually prepared to examine the risks and benefits in continuing with the alternatives, the recommendation, the risks of not proceeding, and the pros of the recommendation. Without a doubt, a powerful business case will create an appealing recommendation for adoption. On the other hand, a business plan is a documented set of business objectives, goals, and strategies that a company wants to meet in the next three to five years. Moreover, the business plan covers sales forecasts and cost estimates, customer segmentation, market information, products and services, and financial forecasts. 
 

How Can You Write a Business Case?
 

Communication is the actual reason for writing a business case. Hence, one should be very careful while writing each section of the business case as it should be written in the language of the intended audience. In addition, there should be only essential data in the business case that aids in decision-making. You should keep certain things in mind while writing a business case which is as follows:
 

• Make it clear, concise, and interesting
   
• Be short and convey only the essential information
   
• Explain your future vision
   
• Minimize jargon and get rid of conjecture
   
• Make sure consistent readability and style
   
• Describe the advantages and value brought by the project into the business
   

It is to be noted that the sponsor of the project is the one who prepares the business case. In addition, every particular team member should participate in the project development and also, subject matter experts from various functions like service delivery, IT, HR, finance, etc. can render special data. The writer of the business case should possess a better understanding of the project’s goals and have the capability to blend complex and varied plans into one document with the use of the different business case templates. The templates usually comprise the following:
 

• Business description/mission statement
   
• Executive summary
   
• Competitor analysis
   
• Marketing strategy
   
• Product or service
   
• Operations overview
   
• SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats
   
• Financial plan
   

As the ideas of “back-of-the-napkin” boosting million dollar start-ups, it tends to overlook old-fashioned business documentation. Some of the agile or lean companies are highly dependent on documentation to encourage collaboration as well as innovation. 
 

What You Should Include in the Business Case?
 

The document of the business case should involve the following given below:
 

• The need for business
   
• The investment decision
   
• Main objectives of the project
   
• The benefits of the business constituting an estimate of the non-financial benefits
   
• Demonstrate the uncertainty level around the proposal      
   
• Explain various options and the reason for recommending those options
   
• Offer options for the management and board to consider while making decisions
   
• How to make sustainability core to the results and recommendation
   
• Describe the alignment between the investment and organizational strategic plan
   
• Offering a strong budget, calculate the costs of the investment, the projected financial statements, and financial advantages
   
• Explain the approach that comes into use like resources, timelines, project governance, procurement strategy, and embedding of sustainability practices
   
• Provide supporting information and essential background to implement the investment in the right way
   
• Assess different scenarios, inherent risks, and sensitivities carefully even how they are going to influence the investment along with outline methods to mitigate them. 
   

What to Keep in Mind While Preparing a Business Case?
 

Having a business case checklist is one of the main steps to start with the preparation of the business case. Below you can check out a basic outline that helps you to start preparing your business case.
 

Plan of the Project
 

The project plan plays an important role while developing a business case. You have to consider the tasks that you need to get done with the project. However, you can make use of a work breakdown structure template to be confident. Once all the tasks are accumulated, you have to calculate how long it will take to complete each. 
 

Objectives, Goals, and Vision
 

You can take this point as the first one as it is to show what you are trying to do and what issue you want to actually solve and it thereby results in your project deliverables. 
 

Requirements and Specs
 

The requirements and specs will vary depending on what type of project you are working on. However, they are censorious to the success of the project. By accumulating all of them, you have to think about what you will decide if you have achieved them successfully so as to mention the results. 
 

Stakeholders
 

You must meet your stakeholders no matter if they are upper management, vendors, departmental leaders, clients, or other contributors to the project. Understand their expectations and view as they all contributed to the project.
 

Final Words
 

Undoubtedly, a business case plays an important role in any project as it justifies the investment. Moreover, it clears the need of the project to the organization along with the prediction of the investment results. It is an important document as there are no unlimited funds in any organization to spend on a lot of projects. At that time, a well-prepared business case offers confidence to senior managers while they are looking to invest in one single project. This article is all about the importance of a business case in a project that helps you to make important business decisions with the right investment. It is not necessary to keep the business case lengthy but brief and simple with essential data. You can even send a few notes via email but you have to just remember that it would help your company to make the right decisions regarding investing money, time, and resources in a project.  

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