Project HEADWAY: Beyond the Business Case: Selling Project Intangibles

  Estimating  

Projects are investments. Investments need to be sold. The way we typically justify our projects is through business cases. We assess the problem, the opportunity and the available solutions. We analyze the impact of those solutions, their costs and the benefits that will be realized. We assess the option with the best return, and commit to a strategy to move forward.

Except that our approach to developing business cases is, by many, seen as inherently flawed. Estimates are seen as guesses. Assumptions are viewed as weasel clauses. Benefits are perceived as being pie-in-the-sky promises without hope of being realized. The result is a justification process that isn't trusted.

One of the fundamental challenges of selling projects is that, particularly for our most strategic ones, their impacts are intangible. Intangible benefits don't reduce well to being communicated in dollar terms. But every benefit that can't be quantified has an impact of exactly zero. If intangible benefits are important, and business cases are to be better trusted, we need different strategies for presenting believable project benefits.

In this presentation, Mark Mullaly reviews the challenges of current approaches to business case development. He provides a candid assessment of how business cases are being used today, where the challenges are, and what needs to change in the future. Most importantly, he offers concrete strategies to better present benefits and make the case for your project, and particularly how to evaluate and present the impact of intangible benefits. Invest in attending this webinar; it could have a tangible impact on your future success.

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