Is the IT 'Business Case' a Waste?

To secure approval for an IT project, many companies require you to write a business case outlining the financial and strategic benefits of the project as well as identifying risks and costs.

But the business case is often a game played by people guessing at numbers and prettying them up to meet their objectives. Business cases are a waste of time. At least that's the opinion of IT expert Susan Cramm, writing on Harvard Business Publishing.

Cramm says smart executives should use this document to create two things:

Clear Project Objectives "To define clear objectives, ensure that the objectives are defined in terms of impact to the core business driver."
Organizational Support "To build support, it's important to align the initiative to the overall strategic business objectives and to align the initiative to serve the selfish interests of the individuals who will be impacted most."

Cramm provides a very illuminating example from the restaurant industry on how to deconstruct company financial docs such as the P&L statement to identify business drivers upon which to build your case.

What are your keys to success to writing a great business case? Are a waste of time?

Sean Silverthorne

Sean Silverthorne is the editor of HBS Working Knowledge, which provides a first look at the research and ideas of Harvard Business School faculty. Working Knowledge, which won a Webby award in 2007, currently records 4 million unique visitors a year. He has been with HBS since 2001.

Silverthorne has 28 years experience in print and online journalism. Before arriving at HBS, he was a senior editor at CNET and executive editor of ZDNET News. While at At Ziff-Davis, Silverthorne also worked on the daily technology TV show The Site, and was a senior editor at PC Week Inside, which chronicled the business of the technology industry. He has held several reporting and editing roles on a variety of newspapers, and was Investor Business Daily's first journalist based in Silicon Valley.

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