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Better Business Cases Practitioner (with Foundation) self-paced online

Self-pacedBetter Business Cases Foundation self-paced online

£699 +vatWhat is a business case?

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 best project management courses

.Personal business caseYou 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.

Why have a business case?

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.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.

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.

Who uses a business case?
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
portfolio management
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.
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.
In all cases, the business case must be written and approved prior to any major commitment of resources.

What form does a business case take?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.

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.

For those of you interested in

project management

, the project management methodology known as

PRINCE2

focuses its decision-making on a project on having a viable business case.Business case examples

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.

Business case example 1: Moving home

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.

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