Recently I was talking with a friend about some of the keys to success in our professional lives. One of these is the importance of building business cases.
In its simplest form, a business case is a written justification for doing (or not doing) ‘something.’ Classic examples include seeking funding to hire someone or to purchase something expensive.
Key reasons for developing business cases, are to:
- Constructively think things through;
- Avoid missing important details;
- Be prepared to answer questions that will arise; and,
- Clearly be able to define outcome and value.
Many times, being able to achieve the seemingly impossible simply came down to having created a business case.
Two examples. A major customer needed a software patch created to solve a major productivity issue. With millions of other customers using the same product, the likelihood of getting a patch done for a single customer was all-but unheard of.
