Today we're going to dive into the world of Better Business Cases. That's right, I've been working on BBCS, not the broadcast agency in the UK, but Better Business Cases for a while now and I am at the inroads of completing one for one of my clients. So this week we're going to dive into 10 tips for completing the Better Business Case process. I hope you learn something. The Better Business Analysis Institute presence, the Better Business Analysis podcast with Kingsman Walsh.
So if you're not familiar with it, the Better Business case process came out of the UK government and it was used in here in New Zealand and it's used in Australia and I'm sure other models of it are used overseas. It is a a quite well documented clear process for requesting funds from a government. So it's goes through different stages, stage gates if you like, where you ask for money and to complete the next stage of your business case.
So you might do business cases internally and they are based on this model. The idea is that you are making it very clear why people should invest in this. And because it's government focused, the government needs to compare your business case. It's usually a chunk of change and they need to compare that money, say for an IT investment versus a new road. So they need to know why this would provide value to the well-being of all the citizens.
And in my case, New Zealand, your government, they will have other priorities and they'll have maybe other processes they run through. But for those who are in the UK, Australia or New Zealand, you will have this process happening around you. You may just not see it. And for those outside of those countries, this is a good place
to start. If you've ever done Prince to another project management certification, I've I've done it and it's used primarily by the UK government and again, adopted by New Zealand and Australia and referenced overseas. I know PMIPMP are more popular in the US, but there is going to be no problem with you adding this to your toolkit.
So I'm going to lead you through 10 top tips that I've learned throughout this process so you can be better with your Better Business cases #1 and that is start with the end in mind, the strategic fit. Always anchor your case in the strategic objectives of your organization. Explain why your organization exists and explain what their objectives are, and then explain how this case, this Better Business case, is going to strengthen and align with that.
If your case does not align with your strategic objectives, a Better Business case is not for you and you can argue you shouldn't really be doing it. You need to describe in the strategic fit how the initiatives align with government priorities, organization strategy and long term outcomes. It's usually costed over a period of time. So some business cases are 10 years. So it's the generally over the
the life of the asset. So if you're doing a new road, it might be, you know, 50 infrastructure hundred hundred years maybe. And IT projects generally about 10 years, five years to do the thing in five years of asset depreciation until you have to do something else. So what you need to do really is for say, an education data platform, which I'm doing at the moment, you need to link that to digital equality, improving the student outcomes and better
policy making. So that's a top tip, this initiative, when you're putting this together, you need to explain why this initiative, the one you want to do, aligns directly with digital strategy and supports the government vision for what, right. So that's how you state it. And the strategic case is the first case you do. And each one of these sections, there's quite a few, there's strategic, there's the economic, there's the commercial, there's the financial and there's a management case.
And then there's an ask what are you asking for? And as you go through the various stage gates, you there are different types and we'll talk about those. You elaborate more on each section. So in the first step, no matter what you do, you're doing a strategic case and you're explaining the why and you know, and the context around that why, which is like your strategy and your strategic objectives. So why and why now and why this initiative? And that's your strategic case.
Then as we move further along the process, you'll go to an economic case and then expand that. You'll then go on to your financial case, expand that, then you'll look at your commercial case and you'll then look at your management case, which includes the project plan. So they're the kind of sections. Now there are different if you like, journeys that a business case can go through a bit of.
Business case 1 is more of a larger higher risk project which goes through indicative stages after the strategic case or after getting on the say treasury or whatever your financial institution for government is onto their books that use your strategic case to get on there. You can do something called an RPA, which is a risk assessment profile to classify which path you would go through. And if it's large, usually 50 million plus, you would go through the process of going indicative.
Then you'd do a detailed elaborating out after you've gone to market and then you'd do an implementation during total cost. So that's your different workflow within those different types of business cases. They are, they're, if you like expansions as you move through, you still have to have those various sections. I talked about South and it does get confusing. The strategic case would be like the section, the economic case, the financial case, the commercial case and the
management case. And then if your project is less than 50 million or low risk, then you can go through what's called a single stage business case where after you've justified the why the strategic case, you then just do one
business case. It has all those sections we just talked about and you move forward and that ultimately gets reviewed and decided all And both of those two workflows, if you like, need to be approved by your government agency to say that we approve and we want to, as a collective, go forward and ask for this money. So this is the prices you would go through if you want money included in the government's budget, which you would probably hear about from time to time.
So I hope that gives you a bit of background we're going to dive into #2 And that is now that you're doing this work, you need to engage stakeholders early. You need to make sure you're Co designing and consulting, OK.
It is an optional, it's expected you actually have to do evidence in place, evidence of your workshops and the annex if you like the appendix of the business case at various stages you need to engage users, policy makers, financial, you know, experts, procurement and other operational teams to ensure that the case is a complete, is robust and supported.
So for example, the commercial case which is primarily around procurement and go to market and tender that would be reviewed by procurement financial guess what finance you need to Co design this kind of business case at various stages and you need to do that through requirements management, the BA part, which is why BAS are good at doing business cases.
And then you need to Co design some of the, I guess executive summary or the summary of your analysis options analysis, true options analysis is required in this process. That's number two. And #3 is making sure that when you are in your strategic case moving into economic, which is the second section, you are clarifying the problem before the solution. You actually have to do something called an investment logic map and an investment
logic map. If you haven't done that, there's not many companies that go out and train for it. So there's not many ILM certified people. But it primarily goes to the process of outlining your problems, outlining what what you plan to do about it and what your responses and then the benefits that come from doing what you said you were going to do to meet those problems. OK, so it's that's a pretty common pattern that BS used and you can get templates for doing that.
It's it's own workshops, it's it's own area. And depending on your business case and how high risk it is, you will need to do that. You don't need to do the NTH degree in my case, which was smaller, but you definitely need to have problems. What are you doing about it? You know your objectives, if you like, and then your benefits from those. So problem, just remember problem investment objectives and the new benefits and your investment objectives drop down into your service requirements
and your scope. So what are you going to do? What are your various scope options? We've talked about problem status before. I'm not going to go over that again. But what I will say is a problem stated well is so important, OK, You need to focus on outcomes and those pain points that you were going to solve and they need to be smart.
So you need to say that, I don't know, data is fragmented across 15 systems and we're going to causing risk and we're going to consolidate into one system by the end of 2026. You need to put that level of rigor around your objectives, OK. And you talk about the current state and the future state, which should be pretty common to most BAS out there. Number 4 is that you need to keep your options open, but not too many.
You need to identify a credible long list and then use factors called the five dimensions of scope scale in terms of the supplies you're going to use, you're going to do it in house or not, financials, different dimensions, there's five that are suggested. And then down your left hand side, you have your investment objectives and you have your critical SuccessFactors. So using those different X&Y axis, you actually identify some valid options. And so that produces long list options.
You're demonstrating you've explored a range of delivery approaches including do nothing. And then you can then roll that down to a shortlist and say we assess five options like do nothing, upgrade, outsource, Co, design, full platform for example. And then you can have a preferred option. So that is your options analysis, which forms part of your economic case, which moves us to #5 and #5 is to use the economic case to tell the value story. OK.
So you need to focus on benefits, not just cost. Infrastructure projects, for example, will have high capital investment. They won't. Their benefits won't pay back that initial capital, but they might have a positive surplus over years of operational expenditure. I know why. The way of saying that is I want a bag of money now, but instead of that rent that you had to pay, which is, I don't know, $1000 a week, you will only need to pay $800 a week moving
forward. So the economic case isn't about being the cheapest, just to be really, really clear. It's about being the most valuable for money in the long term. So you might ask for a $3,000,000 investment now, but it removes $10 million and costs later, Okay. And so you need to apply A5 case model to assess the long term benefits, which not only improve your organization, but if you're pitching to government, you need to say the long term benefits for your country.
So it can be compared with other projects like I mentioned at the start of this episode, like a running project versus an infrastructure project in two different departments. Number six is around the financial case and it needs to be realistic. It can't be. It can't be made-up, it can be estimated, it can be big chunks, but it needs to be costed properly in spreadsheets. Yep, and that's talking about the total cost of ownership.
You need to include implementation, support contingencies and benefits realization costs. You might model over 10 years the cost curve. I'm talking about increased support costs, maybe stepped benefits from year 2 onwards. And you need to show and incorporate things like inflation and capital growth and depreciation in those numbers when you're doing this.
So it has to be done properly, and you will need to talk to your financial team to make sure that some of those more accounting measures are done right #7 is making sure that the commercial case works for you and the market. So you need to think through procurement, right? And you need to think through those procurement steps early on. So if you're in the first stage or phase or gate, you need to think about how you go to
market. So whether or not using a panel, open tender, RFPRFIRFQ or a direct engagement, you need to outline your commercial approach and it must be defendable and feasible. And if you're working in a government department, for example, you will be following your procurement rules of your country and they might be well defined, AKA you have to go to market for something that's over $1,000,000. You can't just ask your mates. So we need to be really clear about that.
And that might be things like saying we propose a long term delivery model with Co design with contractors followed by a build, followed by a long term support contract. And you might say we're going to go out to do a competitive RFP to select a single partner and then negotiate implementation terms. You need to be very, very clear about that. And #8 is around governance.
So you need to clearly define and this goes into your management case, the decision making assurance and reporting structures, who's accountable for the benefit, who's going to get benefits and who's going to deliver on those benefits? Who's going to sign off? The major changes in scope? Have you got a program board? Will they oversee the delivery?
Who's it chaired by? If this is a large budget, but it probably should be the deputy secretary of your government department or the in the head of in your country. You need to about monthly reporting and independent assurance. So you might say something like the government's model assures cross agency oversight and includes a benefits owner accountable for realizing the value who is ex Johnny Smith, general manager of roading #9. We need to embed in our plan both change and benefit
management. OK. And they go hand in hand. You need benefits don't get realized without a great change management plan, right? So it doesn't matter if you do all the technical stuff well, or you do all the steps or build, right? If you don't have a great change management or change adoption, it's a waste of time. And so they, they're, they're intrinsically linked and you need to make that change management visible and active part of your delivery plan.
So like I said, benefits don't realize themselves. They include plans and resources and timelines and mindset change. So you might say something like we've developed a change road map with regional championship and we might imbed some training as part of that. And this is how we're going to incorporate the program change back into a BAU business as usual operating model.
OK. And so you need to include that and #10 you need to make sure that once you've completed those cases, so you've got your management plan, which we just ended with, which will have a project delivery in it. So that's including the government structure and your change in benefits approach. You've got your financial case and you've got your economic case looking at your options.
If you've got the strategic case looking at the why and the objectives and how you're going to measure this thing, you then once you've done all those, you write an executive summary at the front. And that number 10 point is around telling a cohesive story across all the cases. So you will find you're jumping in and out of these cases.
And I'm finding myself that it's really hard to keep track of 180 page document that needs to be that big with annexes, for example, but that it makes sense all the way through and that the story's easy to read. The exact summary allows you to do that. So make sure your narrative is consistent and it's compelling. Each case builds on the last. They hang together. So you would say our preferred option solves the strategic problem.
It offers the best value and can be delivered and fits within our commercial model. This is how we're going to do it. OK, so that's how you need to construct it. ABCD equals the narrative and you need to make sure it's cohesive and read well and put all the major detail for the people that want that detail, not your executive team in the annexes. I hope you've learned something today. That's my experience with Better Business Casing.
I haven't talked about a specific template today, but if you're interested then ask and if you've got experience then tag yourself into this post and tell me about it. I'll see you next week.