The Business Case, Product and Process

Klaus Nielsen, MBA, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMP is the managing director at Global Business Development in Denmark and an associate lecturer in project and program management at the IT University of Copenhagen. He has over 20 years of project management experience in managing and delivering complex, high-visibility information systems projects.

  Benefits Realization   Business Analysis   Business Case   Business Intelligence   Strategy   Knowledge Shelf  

Introduction
Way too few have stated that they may have closed a project because it was not worth the investment. Have you ever ended a business case development before it was completed? I think very few have done so. The case studies presented here are both examples of business case processes, one focusing on the process of the business case development which, to some degree, is highlighted in the literature. However, the other case is focused on the business case development process that is, perhaps, unknown or neglected by most although it is, from my perspective, equally important.

In recent years following the work by Jenner (2012), the focus has been on benefits realization which, for some, may be considered as the “new black,” and for good reasons. Research by PMI in their Pulse of the Profession® (PMI, 2016) highlights that project benefits that are often (or always) identified before the project more frequently meet their goals/intent, and are within budget and on time as opposed to projects that did not identify benefits early on.

The earlier work by Bradley (2010) also highlights the added value of benefits realization management (BRM), as BRM can be related to (and useful for) most areas of projects. In this case, the final argument comes from research by PMI stating that, “All strategic change in an organization happens through project …

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