John ZacharProduct Dev Manager| Association for Project Management (APM)Brackley,, Northamptonshire, United Kingdom
The process of justifying your project can be fraught will problems. Many of the problems go away if those involved have a good understanding of the benefits (tangible or intangible) that the project should deliver. If the project should deliver benefits worth X amount of money, then the funders of the project, let's say the business, should be willing to fund the project to some level equal to or less than X. This is very simple, and can become very complex when you begin considering windows of opportunity, and benefit risk. But it shouldn't be that much of a problem, as long as there is 'real' benefit stemming from the project. Saving Changes...
In my experience the benefit has to greatly outweight the cost of the project before the sponsors are willing to spend the money. Not only do the monetary benefits have to be there, but there generally needs to be some other incentive like making the customer or upper management happier. Saving Changes...
The larger the benifits, the more ambiguous and difficult they become to quantify. eg. Costly projects are often justified by "promised" future revenue. Saving Changes...
I think justifications based on 'real dollar' returns alone are hard enough to get right, adding in 'notional benefits' as well requires understanding and acceptance from upper management of what benefit attracts what 'notional dollar' value that can then be added into the BCR calc's. Brainstorming is an increasingly important technique for finding these notional benefits. It would be good if there was a 'brainstorming discussion site', where 'like industry' players could offer thier 5 cents worth in identifying all real and notional benefits for a project that they can obviously identify themselves with. Saving Changes...
Most of the time the benefits are intangible because these are so in the head of the person representing the case.Most of us have a fuzzy idea about the benefits but refrain from committing figures.One way out could be to also lay down the assumptions and favorable external factors, the benefits depend on.Probabilty attached to each of these would help to crystallize the feasibility to a large extent. Saving Changes...
Anonymous
Logic, ROI, emotion, excitement, "warm-fuzzies" all need to be there to generate project support. Recognize that individuals can easily carry preferences based on their experience and position. Develop sympathisers and supporters from all levels inside your organization and from outside constituents/ stakeholders as well. Saving Changes...
I think projecting the bottom line impact supported by ROI, followed by value based project benefits will certainly be a good start to convince CFO for the neccessary budget Saving Changes...
Linda HillProgram Manager| MicrosoftRenton, Wa, United States
This company has introduced a "portfolio project" organization which is intended to give a holistic view of what IT is doing for a particular area. As resource contentions are identified, it is expected that the executive management will shift priorities or request that some projects stop or slow down in order to accommodate a new, higher priority project.
Business case development begins as soon as a business need or opportunity has been identified and the proposed solution has benefits and costs that can be estimated and documented.
I have been asked to complete a Business Case to upgrade one of our systems. Does anyone have experience with justifying an upgrade, is there an Business Case example, a project plan, a list of questions, etc. that you are willing to share with me?
Thank you, LK Saving Changes...
Anonymous
One of my project managers planned and estimated and executed a feasibility/prototype project - in other words, his project was to actually only execute a segment of the work to prove wether or not we could use the technology successfully. If it showed success, the next step would have to been to continue to Phase 2 and actually implement a large project to use the technology and create an application. As it turned out, our prototyping proved unsuccessful - therefore the PM stopped the project. He said he was successful because he set out to do a prototype to wisely examine whether or not a full scale effort was feasible based on the results of his prototype project.
Problem is, there are folks who say this was an actual project failure as a significant amount of money was spent to prove this in the feasibility study/prototype project.
My question is: what is the criteria/guideline that says whether or not a feasibility study/prototype project is successful and is a good idea if afterwards, it helps you decide if continuing is a waste of money? Is there something that says if you spend 30% or your total estimated project budget on the feasibility study and can provie its a good idea or not, then its succesful. But spending more than 30% is a failure?
Any insight is much appreciated... Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear John, your post and the replies are excellent. I would only add that sometimes, even when a project is justified in terms of benefits outweighing costs, it might not be possible to fund. And some projects, such as compliance projects, may not even have a financial benefit be must be done nonetheless. Regards. -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International Saving Changes...
Matthew BassPublishers PrintingMount Washington, Ky, United States
In response to Anonymous - I don't really know that there's a general rule of thumb here...The feasibility study will vary from project to project depending on the complexity of the project.
Since some people think it was a failure then it doesn't sound like the sponsor signed off on the feasibility budget and scope. If the sponsor did sign off on it then direct those complaints to the project sponsor. Saving Changes...
