Identify the Need for a Business Case

The 6D approach to organisational transformation has been around for some time. Within the 6D model, the first three elements of the model refer to the business case development, the 'Decide' step is portfolio selection and the 'deploy and deliver' are project management and change management factions.

Business case assumptions are by definition statements about future events or conditions that involve some degree of uncertainty. Only when the author communicates clearly the case definition, case design elements and the basis of important case assumptions, can everyone else see for themselves exactly where the results come from, and as a consequence make informed investment decisions. It is only with this kind of transparency can everyone besides the author judge for themselves whether results are objective or biased.

Define the business case: The business case is not defined until the business objectives addressed by the proposed project are described. The benefits should be measured as progress towards the business objectives the project is intended to support.

Design the business case: The design phase sets rules for including or excluding specific costs and benefits in the 'case', and for measuring and valuing them. The case scope and boundaries, case cost model, and case benefits rationale are central design elements for expressing these rules.

Develop the business case: Business case assumptions are by definition statements about future events or conditions that come with some degree of uncertainty. The business case results depend on many kinds of assumptions made during the development phase, including the author's assumptions about such things as prices, labour time requirements, competitor's actions, and market trends.

The business case should capture expectations, reduce uncertainty and provide transparency of the complete scope. A simple narrative (column 2 below) contains a number of specific items in each section of the document (column 3). These should logically map through from the objective to the deliverables, the red dots in column 4 show where requirements or concepts that need removing, clarifying or connecting, to produce a logical business can with minimum ambiguity.

This is a similar process to requirements traceability focused on ensuring the 'case' for the project is reliably and realistic.