PRINCE2 Business Case.
The Business Case is used to determine whether the project remains
viable desirable and achieveable so that informed investment decisions
can be made. Remember, the whole point of investing the time and money
in the project - along with the attendant risks, is that the
benefits are worthwhile.
The cost verses benefits verses risk balance will determine if the
Business Case is desirable.
The fact that the project CAN deliver the products would mean that the
Business Case is viable.
The fact that the project's products have the capability to realize
the benefits means the Business Case is achieveable.
It's worth reminding ourselves Faisal that the project's
OUTPUT is the end product, and this in turn will produce an OUTCOME
(the result of the CHANGE), and lead - usually over time,
to BENEFITS being realized, which is the measurable improvement
resulting from the OUTCOME.
An outline Business Case is created during the Starting Up a Project
process, and is contained within the Project Brief. This will be used
as part of the 'evidence' to put before the Project Board at the
activity 'Authorizing Initiation'.
The Outline Business Case is refined during the Initiating a Project
process as a result of extracting timescale, cost and risk information
from the Project Plan. At this point, the benefits contained within the
Detailed Business Case are used to create the Benefits Review Plan.
The Executive of the Project Board is responsible for ensuring that at
all times, the Business Case represents 'value for money'
The Project Manager will normally prepare the Business Case on behalf
of the Executive, assess and update it at the end of each stage,
and use it to report on the project performance at project closure.
The Senior User is responsible for identifying the benefits and will be
held to account by Corporate or Programme Management after the
project has finished.
The Business Case contains:
- The reasons why the project is needed, and how it will enable the
achievement of corporate strategies and objectives
- Analysis and reasoned recommendation for the business options covering:
Do Nothing
Do the minimum
Do something
- A list of each benefit including its quantifiable current status.
Benefits can be financial and non-financial,
- Dis-benefits. Outcomes perceived as negative by one or more stakeholders.
A dis-benefit is an anticipated consequence as a result of the
project outcome, and should not be confused with a risk.
- The project timescale and the benefit realization period.
- Summarized Project Plan costs including any cost-based assumptions.
The costs should include ongoing operations and maintenance costs
and their funding arrangements
- Investment Appraisal. Compares the aggregated benefits and
dis-benefits to the project costs (extracted from the Project Plan),
and ongoing incremental operations and maintenance costs.
- Risks. These are a summary of the aggregated risks that may either
reduce or enhance the benefits
The Business Case is a key decsion-making management product, and is
used at key points during a project. In particular:
- The Project Mandate should contain the reasons why the project is needed.
These are refined in the Starting Up a Project process and used to
form the Outline Business Case
- When authorizing the initiation stage
- when authorizing a project (signing off the PID)
- At each end stage assessment, having been updated at the end of the
current stage
- At each Exception Assessment - based on a requested Exception Plan
and subsequently updated for presentation to the Project Board
- It is checked as part of impact analysis when assessing an issue
or a risk during a stage
- It is used as part of the Closing a Project process to determine the
likelihood of expected benefits being realized
- It is used as an input when creating and updating the Benefits Review Plan.
The Benefits Review Plan is used to define how and when a measurement
of the achievement of the project's benefits expected by the Senior User,
can be made
