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Building a business case is one of the key parts during the initiation phase of any advanced project. Badly produced business cases will make organizations very nervous. This is particularly true of advanced projects because of the very large investments that are often involved. If the case is badly written then it is likely that the company will continue to prevaricate about the project. This will result in more time being used than is necessary before the project is fully commissioned. It is therefore extremely important that you ensure that the business case is produced efficiently and to the highest standards.
Normally the business case is the responsibility of the project sponsor and because of this many project managers feel that they should not waste time working on it. They do not believe that it is their responsibility to ensure its success. Instead project managers spend their time working on the other three initiation phase project themes: stakeholder management, long-lead item tasks and early roles and responsibility definitions. You should not do this. In advanced projects you cannot leave the success of the business case to someone else. Regardless of whose responsibility it is to complete the business case it is too important for you to ignore it. You must get actively involved in the production of the business case since it is this document that will normally secure you the needed project resources. Actively supporting the project sponsor in the project’s business case production is something that you must do.

Often the project sponsor will welcome any offer of support in the production of the business case. However, whilst this enthusiasm will make it easy for you to become involved, you need to exercise caution. Many projects have floundered because project managers and their teams have, wrongly, taken over the production of the business case. Frequently this is done with good intentions, for example to try to ensure that the business case production remains on target. However, despite project managers’ good intentions it can end up leaving the project sponsors feeling sidelined. As a result the project sponsors sometimes withhold their signature when it comes to the final approval. Skilful project managers must ensure that this does not happen.

To ensure that project sponsors feel that they are driving the process, you must approach the business case production in a methodical manner. This can be difficult since people are often very unsure at the start of an advanced project about the detail of what they want to achieve. Project sponsors can explain their desired strategy but normally they cannot explain any of the detail. This is unfortunate since project sponsors are also the people who want to see the detail before they are willing to support the case for committing substantial resources. This is a natural way of acting for most people. In general people find it difficult to commit to a high-level strategy without it being backed by significant amounts of detail. They want to be able to understand on a practical level the tasks and activities. Unfortunately this can prove very frustrating for project managers. They are working on something that is not their responsibility and they are being told that the result is not detailed enough.

To overcome the difficulties and get the business case successfully produced you should follow two simple steps. These steps are normally independent of the life cycle being used: 1) Meet the project sponsor. 2) Set up a project steering group.