2 years later, I would hope she's not still waiting for an answer....
It is, however, an interesting question. I had the exact same problem a month ago, and all I had was Wikipedia's article on Business Cases.
So I patched together a presentation - not a Word document, I find writing tedious, since most executives I know find reading tedious, and they don't have time for it anyway. At least colourful pictures and slick-looking charts keep their attention just long enough. I'm not gonna upload the file, but here is the basic breakdown:
- Current situation (a bunch of numbers about our projects), and a statement: to put it simply, we aren't doing great
- A quick explanation of why the numbers aren't good
- Definitions: it's so nice when everybody knows what we're talking about
- A maturity matrix showing where we are and where we can go
- Requirements: what we need in order to start moving in the right direction
- Business benefits: I made assumptions ("what if this number was better?") and explicitly wrote the mathematical formula used to prove the positive impact it would have
- A list of foreseeable challenges: nope, the project won't do itself
- A few suggested next steps to get the ball rolling
And that's it. All in all, 10 slides, to sell the necessity of better project and portfolio management to the higher-ups.
Now, if anyone has ideas/suggestions on what I could add in there, it's never too late to make a v2. I'd also be interested in getting some feedback from people who have done this exercise already, and can warn me of any pitfalls they've been in.
Thanks! Saving Changes...
