What's Wrong with the Business Case?

Michelle Stronach has over 20 years of experience in the project management field, with experience creating successful PMOs and implementing project, portfolio management and IT governance frameworks. Michelle truly appreciates the value of feedback and welcomes comments on her articles. https://twitter.com/mlstronach

  Business Analysis   Business Case   Strategy  

I am willing bet that the business case process is a uniformly dreaded endeavor at any organization. I can't imagine anyone waking up in the morning and saying (not sarcastically), "Oh boy, today I get to work on a business case!" It's like taking fish oil...you know it’s good for you, but boy it tastes bad.

Unfortunately, many organizations make the business case exercise even more painful. They create cumbersome procedures and templates that circumvent its principle purpose, provide no useful information or analysis for making decisions and are then shelved once the stamp of approval to the ineffectual document is given.

The purpose of the business case is to present a proposal to the appropriate authority within the organization to seek funding and support to embark on an initiative. Business cases are hard because not only do they require deliberate thought, but also influence and selling to convince stakeholders to collectively take decisive action to solve a problem or take advantage of an opportunity. If business cases were easy, my Weimaraner could do it (he is actually a pretty smart dog).

Misunderstood Importance of the Business Case

“The less I understood of this farrago, the less I was in a position to judge of its importance.”
-- Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Business cases…

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