is a reference point before, during, and after a project. As the project begins the Business Use Case establishes the ultimate goal of the project for all stakeholders—including the project manager and sponsor. There are invariably concepts in the minds of the key project participants of what they expect the project to accomplish. The vast majority of unsuccessful projects fail not because of poor project management, but because of poor decisions with respect to the choice of projects. A good business case helps to make right decisions and avoid a waste of time and resources.
A Business Use Case should include the following categories:
Executive Summary
An Executive Summary should speak to the overarching goals of the project. What is it, how does it benefit your company and what type of evaluation process have you gone through to narrow down the field to the top 2-3 vendors.
Vendor Recommendation
Here it is key to speak to differentiation amongst the top vendor selections. What does each offer and why does your selection stand out as the right choice.
Overview of Business Case
This is the meat of your presentation. Talk about the purpose and scope of your projects, what the key deliverables are, who the stakeholders are and key team members that will participate in this implementation. You can also include a brief financial summary here if warranted.
Cost Analysis
Here you can begin to break down the costs of both the software licensing and the implementation fees. These are likely best served by breaking them into two sections as the software licensing fees are on-going where the implementation fees should be one-time costs. It may also be helpful to add the number of hours required of the vendor and of team members in this section.
Implementation Phases
Especially for large projects, you should break them down into phases. Usually you will see somewhere between 3-6 phases depending on the length of time necessary for the implementation. If various modules have been purchases, it’s a good way to showcase which modules will be implemented when.
Anticipated Benefits
This is your opportunity to sell! Think about not only direct savings in terms of cost, time or headcount, but also costs savings that might result from decreased turnover, automation of processes, lack of errors, speed and efficiency.