Writing a Business Case

32mGeneral2017-07-04

Authors

Mike Figliuolo

Founder and Managing Director of thoughtLEADERS, LLC

Course details

You have a great idea you believe will improve your business. In order to make your idea a reality, you may be asked to write a business case that clearly articulates what you want to accomplish, how you're going to do it, and why it's worth doing. Business cases are traditionally used in approval and prioritization processes. They can also be used to measure the results of an initiative. In this course, join Mike Figliuolo as he explains step-by-step how to craft a compelling business case for your stakeholders. Mike covers how to define the problem your plan addresses, communicate your idea's benefits, build the financial projections to support your case, create a robust risk assessment, and more.

Learning objectives
Define the structure and uses of a business case.
Write effective executive summaries.
Explain the components of a problem definition.
Describe how to articulate the benefits of an idea.
Estimate financial results and identify measurements of success.
Describe how to outline risks and opportunities.
Create milestones.

Skills covered

Business StrategyBusiness Analysis and StrategyLeadership and ManagementOne-Off

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Introduction
02 - How to use the exercise files

1. Business Case Basics

03 - How to structure a business case
04 - Capturing administrative information
05 - Writing the executive summary

2. Crafting Your Idea

06 - Defining the problem
07 - Explaining your idea
08 - Articulating the idea's benefits

3. Building the Financials

09 - Making the investment case
10 - Defining resource needs
11 - Estimating financial results

4. Planning Execution

12 - Risks and opportunities
13 - Creating milestones
14 - Measuring results

Conclusion

15 - Next steps