How To Write A Business Justification – A business case is the most important document you will ever need to write for a project. It explains why your organization will invest time and resources in a project. Without a rock-solid business case, your project is unlikely to get a return on investment. Writing a business case is often a skill learned in a business analyst course.
This article explains how to write a business case. It includes 2 business case examples and a free business case template that you can download.
How To Write A Business Justification
Introduction You are probably reading this article because you want to know how to write a business case. Perhaps your organization is working on a major project to develop a new product. Or maybe you’re thinking about moving home so your family can enjoy a better life. In both cases, you write a business case to ensure that the investment is worthwhile. In this article, we provide you with two business case examples, provide you with a simple business case template that you can use, and explain how to write a business case. .
Business Case Template For Word (free Download)
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What is a business case? A business case is the justification for any activity (eg a project) that your organization undertakes. It weighs up the timescales, costs and risks of carrying out the activity against the benefits that can be achieved. Think of it as weighing up the pros and cons and then making a sensible decision. A business case forms an important part of the curriculum of the best project management courses. Personal business case You can also use a business case to justify an investment you make in your private life. For example, when you are 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 against the benefits that can be gained e.g. saves time traveling to your office or your children can go to a better school. Why have a business case? Projects should not just be started on a whim or out of vanity – even though a lot of money has been wasted over the years on such projects. For business organizations, the justification for a project usually takes a commercial form, ie. to evaluate how much money can be made from the investment. For example, investing money in developing a new software app to be the first to enter the market may be considered to provide some financial benefits (in terms of sales) that exceed the investment costs. For government organisations, the rationale is probably not commercial, but may be based on providing value for money to achieve certain benefits. For example, a public health campaign that touts the benefits of flu vaccinations for older people may be judged as providing more value for money than having no campaign at all, relying instead on treating patients in hospital once they have contracted the virus. With so many competing demands being made on scarce resources, organizations need reassurance that the decision they are making is the right one. After all, there won’t be enough funds to pay for all the project ideas floating around the organization. Who uses a business case? Business cases can be used by many different levels of management within an organization. Not only are they used to justify the investment in an individual project, but they are also commonly used by a portfolio management office to help it determine which projects will contribute to the organization’s strategic goals. This way, they can filter out the bad ideas for projects and only fund projects that will contribute to strategic goals. A business case is also often used by a project sponsor or project manager to help them decide whether to invest in a specific project. In any case, the business case must be written and approved before major resource commitments are made. What form does a business case take? Business cases can take many forms – digital or analog. The tools you use to create one are also many and varied. Common business tools such as Microsoft Office can be used. Instead of being a document or a slide show, it might as well be in the form of an email. Likewise, a business case can be written by hand on a whiteboard or flipchart or on the back of a cigarette pack! What you should always remember is that a business case does not have to be a hugely long document. In fact, it should be as short as possible and contain only the most important information. In this way, it cuts through the noise and gives decision makers just the right information to make sensible decisions. For those of you who are interested in project management, the PRINCE2 project management method focuses its decision-making on a project on has a sustainable business case.
Business case examplesWe will now give you 2 business case examples. The first example is one that you can use to make decisions in your personal life. The second business case example is a more business-focused project. Business example 1: Moving home Suppose you and your spouse are considering moving to a new home. You have to weigh the pros and cons of moving. This is done with the help of a business case. You might not call it that, but it is what it is. Let’s look at an example.
Reason As you can see in 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
Business Justification Template
There are actually two problems here – the local school and John’s long commute. Alternatives considered A business case should weigh up the competing alternatives that have been considered. After all, there is more than one option. An alternative might have been for John to change jobs to a job closer to their current house. However, this would not solve the problem with the school. Benefits The benefits of a project or activity are the positive things you will get back in return for your investment of time and money. In this case, the children will get a better education, and John will save time every day. Timescales It is also important to understand how long the investment of resources will take. This is so that the organization (or family in this case) will know when resources will be freed up to work on other projects or activities. There are usually 2 time scales 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 during which the benefits are to be realized. In this case, it is 5 years until the children leave school. Costs The costs of carrying out the project or activity are the next important piece of information. For this project the costs of moving to a new house will be £5,000. These are the project costs. However, the couple will spend an additional £2,000/year for each year over which the business case is calculated. For a project in an organization, this is usually referred to as the operating costs of maintaining and driving the project’s results, e.g. an IT system. At this point, the couple knows the total costs over the time scales when the benefits will be realized. Risks For any activity or project, it is also important to understand the major risks. Risks are the uncertain things that may or may not happen during the investment period. There is only one risk identified here, which is the risk that the couple may lose contact with friends who currently live near them. Investment assessment The next section is where the costs and timescales and risks are weighed up. For this project, it is a simple decision for the couple to decide whether it is worth spending money over the next 5 years to give their children better schooling and to save John 2 hours a day commuting. For an organization to decide whether an investment is worthwhile, however, there are several different ways in which it can decide on the investment. Often in organizations there are rules defined to help business analysts or project managers write what is called an investment assessment. In the next example, we’ll look at an example called net benefits. Business Example 2: Handheld Unit Project Imagine a heating repair services company that uses a paper-based set of forms that are filled out by an engineer during on-site visits. The spare parts required to fix the heater are recorded on a form 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.
Summary This sample business case contains a manager
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