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Is it okay to Iteratively develop and maintain a Business Case?

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Mohammad Khan Deputy Vice President, Program Management| MetLife Bangladesh Dhaka, Bangladesh
In PMBOK 6th edition on page 29 it is said that "These two documents are interdependent and iteratively developed and maintained throughout the life cycle of the project." Here the documents referred to are Business Case and Benefits Management Plan.

My understanding is that, Business case is developed in pre-project phase and used to get approval of a project to go ahead with. My question is that how can the Business Case be iteratively developed once it is approved? It contains business justifications of a project. Business justification cannot change over time. There might have new data over the course of the project to support the justification.

What is your thought? Am I wrong somewhere?
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Vincent Guerard Coach - Trainer - Speaker - Advisor| Freelance Mont-Royal, Quebec, Canada
Mohammad,

Both documents, Business Case and Benefits Management Plan precede the project. When making them it can be iterative. Once they are finalized the project might be approved. If a change occurs after project approval, it might justify revisiting the Business Case and Benefits Management Plan. That could stop the project.

Those documents don't determine the "how", but the "what" is the project and what is expected from the project. When they are changing it changes the project, stop it.
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Mohammad Khan Deputy Vice President, Program Management| MetLife Bangladesh Dhaka, Bangladesh
Jan 03, 2020 6:52 AM
Replying to Mohammad Khan
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Hi Sergio,
What you said is clear to me. Thanks for sharing this.
But my point was that Project is always approved once and for that Business Case is developed once as well. So my question was how can the business case be iteratively developed and maintained? My understanding is, it cannot.
Hi Sergio,
Thank you for the explanation. It is now clear to me. The statement I liked to most is "The business case is relating to the solution where the project is just a component inside the solution."
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1 reply by Sergio Luis Conte
Jan 04, 2020 6:30 AM
Sergio Luis Conte
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You are welcome. One of the things that some people that work as project managers forgot is we are helping on creating solutions then the project is just a mean for doing that. The focus must be the solution. That was one of the big mistakes the PMI made along the years at least in implicit way which is putting the project before all other things. That´s still remain unfortunatelly because is the first step to fail as project manager. My final comment is I wrote that because is what I lived along the years in the practice.
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Sergio Luis Conte Helping to create solutions for everyone| Worldwide based Organizations Buenos Aires, Argentina
Jan 04, 2020 6:09 AM
Replying to Mohammad Khan
...
Hi Sergio,
Thank you for the explanation. It is now clear to me. The statement I liked to most is "The business case is relating to the solution where the project is just a component inside the solution."
You are welcome. One of the things that some people that work as project managers forgot is we are helping on creating solutions then the project is just a mean for doing that. The focus must be the solution. That was one of the big mistakes the PMI made along the years at least in implicit way which is putting the project before all other things. That´s still remain unfortunatelly because is the first step to fail as project manager. My final comment is I wrote that because is what I lived along the years in the practice.
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