What is a business case?AgilePM
A business case is the justification for some activity (e.g. a project) undertaken by your organisation. It weighs up the timescales, costs and risks of doing the activity against the benefits to be gained. Think of it as weighing up the pros and cons and then taking a sensible decision.®
A business case forms an essential component of the curriculum of the – Agile Project Managementbest project management coursesFoundation .Learn the key principles of Agile Project Management.
Personal business casePractitioner
You may also use a business case to justify an investment you make in your personal life. For example, when you’re thinking of moving home to another area. You and your spouse will need to understand the costs of moving, the timescales and risks involved, and weigh these up against the benefits to be gained e.g. saving time traveling to your office, or your children able to go to a better school.Includes Foundation & Practitioner combined option.
Why have a business case?PRINCE2
Projects should not just start on a whim or because of vanity – although a lot of money has been wasted over the years on such ®projects Agile.Foundation
For business organisations, justification for a project usually takes a commercial form i.e. evaluating how much money could be made from the investment. For example, investing money in developing a new software app to bring first to market, might be deemed to bring certain monetary benefits (in terms of sales) which exceeds the costs of investment.Learn the fundamentals of the PRINCE2 Agile method.
For government organisations, justification is probably not a commercial one, but could be based upon giving value for money to achieve certain benefits. For example, a public health campaign extolling the benefits of flu-vaccinations for elderly people, might be judged as giving greater value for money than having no campaign, and instead relying on treating patients in hospital once they have contracted the virus.Practitioner
With so many competing claims being made on scarce funds, organisations need the assurance that the decision they are taking is the right one. After all, there will not be enough funds to pay for all the ideas for projects which are floating around the organisation.Includes Foundation & Practitioner combined option.
Who uses a business case?Scrum
Business cases can be used by many different levels of management within an organisation. Not only are they used to justify the investment in an individual project, but also they are typically used by a Scrum Essentials portfolio managementSelf-paced training course to learn the essentials of Scrum. office to help it decide which projects will contribute to the organisation’s strategic goals. That way, they can filter out the bad ideas for projects, and only fund projects which will contribute to strategic goals.Scrum Master
A business case is also often used by a project sponsor or project executive to help it decide if they should invest in a specific project.Choose Scrum Alliance or Scrum.org Scrum Master training courses.
In all cases, the business case must be written and approved prior to any major commitment of resources.Scrum Product Owner
What form does a business case take?Choose Scrum Alliance or Scrum.org Product Owner training courses.
Business cases can take many forms – digital or analogue. The tools you use to create one are also many and varied. Common business tools such as Microsoft Office might be used. Rather than being a document or slide deck however, it could equally be in the form of an email.AgileBA
Equally, a business case could be written by hand on a whiteboard or flipchart, or on the back of a cigarette packet!®
What you should always remember is that a business case does not have to be a huge long document. In fact, it should be as short as possible, and only include the most important information. That way it cuts out the noise and provides decision-makers with just the right information to enable them to take sensible decisions. – Agile Business Analysis
For those of you interested in Foundation project managementLearn the fundamentals of Agile Business Analysis., the project management methodology known as Practitioner PRINCE24-day course including Foundation. focuses its decision-making on a project on having a viable business case.Lean Six Sigma
Business case examplesYellow Belt
We will now give you 2 business case examples. The first example is one which you might find useful for taking decisions in your personal life. The 2nd business case example is more business focused project.Self-paced training course to gain LSS Yellow Belt.
Business case example 1: Moving homePMI
Suppose you and your spouse are considering moving to a new home. You will need to weigh up the pros and cons of moving. This is done using a business case. You might not call it that, but that’s what it is. Let’s look at an example.®
ReasonPMI-ACP
As you can see from the example, the first thing to be clear about in a business case is the reason for doing the project or activity. In this example, the couple has answered the question Self-paced course to prepare you for the exam (exam not included).Why?Kanban In fact, there are two problems here – the local school and John’s long commute.Estimating for Agile Foundation
Options consideredAgile Learning Library (ALL)™
A business case should weigh up the competing options which have been considered. After all, there is usually more than one option. Perhaps an alternative option would have been for John to change his job to one nearer their current house. However, this wouldn’t solve the issue with the school.BUSINESS ANALYSIS
BenefitsBCS Business Analysis
The benefits of a project or activity are the positive things you’re going to get back in return for your investment of time and money. In this case, the kids will get a better education, and John will save time each day.Modelling Business Processes
TimescalesGain practitioner certificate in modelling business processes.
It’s also important to understand how long the investment of resources will take. This is so that the organisation (or family in this case) knows when the resources will be freed up to work on other Business Analysis Practices projectsGain practitioner certificate in business analysis practices. or activities.Requirements Engineering
There are usually 2 timescales to consider. First, the timescale of the project or activity – in this case 3 months to find a new house and move there. Second, the time over which the benefits shall be realized. In this case it’s 5 years until the kids leave school.Gain practitioner certificate in requirements engineering.
CostsBusiness Analysis International Diploma
The costs of doing the project or activity is the next important bit of information. On this project, the costs of moving to a new house will be £5,000. These are the project costs.All 4 courses bundled into this Diploma certification package.
However, the couple will spend an additional £2,000/year for every year over which the business case is calculated. For a project in an organisation, this is usually referred to as the operational costs of maintaining and operating the projects outputs e.g. an IT system. At this point, the couple knows the total costs over the timescales when the benefits shall be realized.AgileBA
Risks®
For any activity or project, it’s also important to understand the major risks involved. Risks are the uncertain things which may or may not happen during the period of the investment. There is only one risk identified here, which is the risk that the couple might lose touch with friends who live close to them right now. – Agile Business Analysis
Investment appraisalFoundation training
The next section is where the costs and timescales and risks are weighed up. For this project, it’s a simple decision for the couple to decide if it’s worth spending money over the next 5 years to give their kids better schooling and to save John 2 hours a day commuting.Learn the fundamentals of Agile Business Analysis.
For an organisation to decide if an investment is worthwhile, however, there are several different ways in which it can decide about the investment.Practitioner
Often in organisations there are rules defined to help business analysts or 4-day course including Foundation.project managersPMI write what’s called an investment appraisal. In the next example, we’ll look at one example known as net benefits.®
Business case example 2: Handheld device projectPMI-PBA
Imagine a heating repair services company that uses a paper-based set of forms filled in by an engineer during site visits. The spare parts required to fix the heater are recorded on a form which is given to staff to process back in the office. They then order the parts, and schedule a follow-up visit for the engineer to fix the heater.Self-paced course to prepare you for the exam (exam not included).
PRINCE2 COURSES
The net benefits are simply the total benefits minus the total costs. This shows that the company will start to get a return on its investment sometime towards the end of year 2. This knowledge is vital if the decision-makers are to take a sensible decision about whether to invest in the project.Select your preferred training course below:
Business case template
This simple APM COURSESbusiness case templateSelect your preferred training course below: is free to download.
SummaryAGILE PROJECT MANAGEMENT COURSES
A business case is the most important document on any project. That’s because it justifies the investment.Select your preferred training course below:
It helps an organisation be clear about why a project is needed, and what the results of the investment will be. This is crucial because no organisation has unlimited funds to spend on an unlimited number of projects. Therefore, a business case gives confidence to senior managers when deciding to invest in one project rather than another.
However, as you have seen in this article, a business case is something which you can find useful when taking major decisions in your own personal life. Remember – a business case doesn’t need to be a lengthy document. It could easily be a few notes scribbled on the back of something or even sent in an email.PRINCE2 AGILE COURSES
Whatever form your business case takes, remember one thing – it will help you or your organisation take sensible decisions about committing time and resources to a project or activity.Select your preferred training course below:
Remember, if you want to learn more about developing a business case, and learn many of the techniques useful for assessing business problems, consider attending a classroom business analyst courseBETTER BUSINESS CASES COURSES.Select your preferred training course below: