Business Case Document

Business Case Document:

A proper business case document will have all feasible solutions for the business owner requirements. Business owner can select a suitable solution from the given solutions that suits their organization.

Before you start writing your business case:

There are several stages that must be completed before writing and presenting a business case document. As business case document is time consuming, its important to do feasibility study of the project and evaluate as early as possible.

The first stage involves analyzing the situation that led to project initiation.

Once the problem is understood and articulated, we could able to get the rough estimation of requirement for the project. These requirement may include time, skilled manpower required and tentative deadline for project, project phases.

Next, we should identify all the data sources that is required to support the business case. These sources can be financial sources, case studies from similar projects, industry analysis, historical data, forecasts etc.

Once the information is collected, we need to discuss with concerned people who are involved in decision making and take their opinion on projects worth and feasibility. Based on the inputs, we have to decide whether to go ahead and write the document or not.

The executive summary:

This summary will have solutions for the problem that the project is intended to solve, the skilled resources required for project completion, the predicted ROI, the desired outcome and so on. It is very important to mention any information that is crucial to make decision because some stakeholders just read the executive summary.

The problem statement:

This section will have the problem that the project is supposed to solve. This will address the issues in the areas such as missed opportunities, unacceptable market performance, inefficiencies or unfavorable consumer insights on a service or product.

Analysis of the situation:

This section will describe the situation behind the problem in detail and it provides projections about potential events of the current situation continue.

Solution options:

In this section, you identify potential solutions to the problem and describe them in detail for the reader to understand them.

Project description:

This section describes the project, including all the resources required for its implementation, the project budget and a timeline with measurable goals for all project milestones. List any assumptions that the reader should be aware of such as government regulations subject to the project will not change. We should list out other dependencies like availability of key resources, completion of other projects. Also, risks involved in the project and a plan for dealing with those risks. In the budget session we need to include financial information such as ROI and total cost of ownership generally we quote additional 15 -20% of the total for scope creep. This will also include the all stages of project which will include post project review with measurable criteria to determine the success of the project.

Cost-benefit analysis:

Evaluations of cost and benefits for the proposed solution to the problem are included in this section. Charts and graphs are often included in this section or may be in an appendix at the end. We should try and include as many graphs as possible which will illustrate points that are hard to relate from text based data. This section should include the projected financial benefit to the organization and a tentative projection of when the payoff is expected.

Recommendations:

We make our recommendations pertaining to project in this section. Recommendations like when the project should be undertaken, including key individuals and their actions. When should we schedule reexamination of the project status and so on.

Before you present your business case, check the documents carefully for any spelling corrections and verify the document with the critical eye and read the document carefully before submitting it.