Successful Business Practice

Business Case Competency: It's A Program, Not a Point Solution

What does it take to establish good business case practice in real-world organisations? Training? A good business case tool? Management directives?

?For most organisations, the answer is: all of the above--and more. Establishing good business case practice requires a programmatic effort with several components.?

"We are going to stop making bad decisions and we are going to stop now!" It could have been the voice of a leader who is decisive and impulsive by nature.

Or it could have been the overdue response of a tolerant executive, burned one time too many by his direct reports. It could have been any of the participants in our Business Case Seminars. In any case, the objective and the urgency were clear: "I announced this morning," he said "that we are going to stop making bad decisions and we are going to stop now!" This was a Senior Vice President of a US Fortune 100 company who had called to ask what it would take to establish good business case practice in his organisation.

A Real, Long Term Solution

He was not talking about the next important proposal needing support and he was not talking about one or two individuals needing business case skills. He was talking about finding a long term solution for unfortunate product decisions, unsupportable sales forecasts, and unrealistic production plans. He was talking about alliances that looked promising at first. but which ultimately produced nothing for either partner. He was talking about endless wheel spinning and indecisiveness around ?IT infrastructure proposals and other investment plans, where no one could put a finger on the business benefits.

When he said "establish good business case practice," he meant change the way decision support and planning are done by more than a thousand product managers, alliance and partnership managers, business consultants, marketing specialists, sales people, IT directors, engineers, and corporate officers.? He was talking about building business case competency for his entire organization. He asked: "Can it be done? If so, how do we do it?"

You Are Not Alone

If you or someone at the top of your organization have made a similar declaration, don't think you are alone. We hear the same message from business managers across industries--from automotive to IT, from fashion design to financial services, and beyond. We hear it from leaders in the military, education, and government.

You probably know already that the business and professional world is becoming increasingly intolerant of management errors. There is a new emphasis on accountability, and everyone has the same marching orders: "Do more with less." It's no surprise that everyone today is talking about the "business case" for decision support and planning.

It's not a Quick Fix. It's a Program. It takes Time

If you have already started a business case initiative in your organization, you know that everyone may talk about the business case, but not everyone knows what that means, even after business case training. Nor do tools and templates solve the bad decision problem by themselves. Management directives to "get with the program--or else!" bring in reports that seem to fit the required format, but do nothing to improve the quality of decision making or the confidence of decision makers. What does it take in the real world to do what this Vice President wanted to do: change"? really change"? the way decision support and planning are done in a large organization? Organizations that reach for a single "quick fix" solution fail, again and again. Companies and other organizations succeed once they recognize two realities:

• Establishing good business case practice calls from a program of coordinated actions.
• Establishing good business case practice takes time

The Business Case Competency Program: A Multifaceted Initiative

In practical terms, the answer the Vice President's question (Can it be done?) is "yes" if the?initiative includes most if not all of the following:

1. A champion. The program has to be driven by one or more individuals who put a high priority on improving business case practice in the organization, who have the time, resources, and motivation to coordinate and drive the other program elements below.
2. High level management support and attention. Learning and compliance move forward more quickly if top management and other influential leaders let it be known continuously that they expect funding requests and other proposals from now on to come with business case support
3. Clear standards for what constitutes an acceptable business case. Established standards or acceptability criteria produce the consistency that submitters and reviewers need in order to evaluate proposal after proposal. They also provide focal points for reviewers to explain to submitters why their proposal was or wasn't approved.
4. Carrots and sticks (Incentives and disincentives). Senior management?communicates clearly that successful proposals and acceptable plans require business case support that meets locally established business case standards. Proposals that do not have this support will not be approved or funded.
5. Well-publicized "success" cases, developed early in the initiative. These serve as examples for other case-builders. They also signal that this kind of case is within reach of everyone who needs to produce one. They say loudly and clearly that compliance with the business case program is already underway. This is not something to start at some indefinite future time.
6. Online case-building resources. Readily accessible tools (including example cases, but also templates and sample financial models and commonly-needed case building data (such as labour costs, criteria for prioritizing capital requests, spending policies, etc.).
7. A source of help when case-builders run into problems. This need not be a full-blown help desk--but it should be at least a person with good experience and knowledge who can be called by case builders who are stumped or suddenly "out of their depth."
8. Business case training. Good business case training gives case builders and case reviewers confidence, based on classroom experience and a clear understanding of business case essentials (essential components of business case design, important differences between strong and weak cases, how to legitimize benefits for the case, how to be sure all the relevant costs are included, and so on).? A common vocabulary. Those who build cases, those who review cases, and those who use the results for decision support and planning need to share a common understanding of essential business case structure and contents, described based on a common business-case vocabulary (such as that presented in the Business Case Essentials or the ?Business Case Guide.?

Take action!

Learn and practice proven 6D Business Case Framework at a Building the Business Case Seminar. Learn more about?business case?design from one of our books, the Business Case Guide, Getting Your Budget Approved, ?,or the world's most frequently cited business case book, 'Business Cass Essentials`. See details below.

https://www.business-case-analysis.com/?source=Cavendish

https://www.business-case-analysis.com/business-case-essentials.html?source=Cavendish

In our experience, no single point above by itself guarantees business case competency in the organization. Establishing the capability and the habit for good case-building practice is a program of coordinated activities, not a point solution. Take action! Learn and practice proven methods for building your cases.

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