Fisher College Background and Business Problem Case Study

2.0 Strategic Case

All projects should support the organization’s strategy and strategic plans in order to add value and maintain executive and organizational support. This section provides an overview of the organizational strategic plans that are related to the project. Essentially, where does this project fit in helping the organizational achieve its goals? This section should also list the business goals and objectives which are supported by the project and how the project will address them.

3.0 Project Overview

This section describes high-level information about the project to include a description (high level scope), assumptions, and constraints.

4.0 Expected Benefits

This section should describe the anticipated outcome if the proposed project or initiative is implemented. It should include how the project will benefit the business and describe what the end state of the project should be.

5.0 Financial Considerations

Many consider this one of the most important parts of a business case as it is often the costs or savings a project yields which win final approval to go forward. It is important to quantify the financial benefits of the project as much as possible in the business case. This is usually done in the form of a cost benefit analysis. The purpose of this is to illustrate the costs of the project and compare them with the benefits and savings to determine if the project is worth pursuing.

6.0 Risks

What the risks that you anticipate based on your analysis of the proposed solutions (i.e. project)? These are not the specific risks associated with your project’s performance, such as the project being delivered late, but are risks associated with whether or not the proposed solution will actually address the business problem you have identified above.

7.0 Timeline

What is the high level timeline from this point forward? For instance, if the next step is to charter a project, how long until the results of the project are realized and the business problem is resolved?

8.0 Recommendations and Next Steps

This section summarizes the recommendation(s) of the person(s) responsible for preparing the business case. How do you recommend that the organization proceed based on your analysis? As for next steps, should the project be chartered, or should a different outcome result from the analysis?