IT Business Case Development
Teaching teams to write a case that survives a finance review.
Cases that get funded, because the numbers hold up when finance tests them.
Delivery. Taught on cases your teams are actually preparing.
IT leaders, project managers, architects and analysts who have to ask for money.
Good proposals keep getting deferred, benefits are written as adjectives, or finance sends every case back for rework.
What we teach
The decision being asked for
What is actually being approved, by whom, and what they need to believe. Cases fail when they answer a question nobody asked.
Benefits that can be defended
Quantified where they can be, stated plainly where they cannot, and owned by the business leader who will be held to them.
Costs people forget
Internal time, licensing at year three, support, training, decommissioning the thing it replaces, and the run cost nobody budgeted.
Options, including doing nothing
A case with one option is a request. Do nothing, do the minimum, do it properly — with what each costs and what each gives up.
Risk and sensitivity
What has to be true for the numbers to hold, and what happens to them if it is not.
Speaking finance
Capital against operating, payback, net present value and the vocabulary your CFO already uses to compare this against everything else on their desk.
Writing it short
One page that carries the decision, with the detail behind it for anyone who wants to test it.
Benefits realization
Measuring afterwards, and reporting honestly when it did not land — which is what makes the next case credible.
They are comparing it to everything else on the desk.
- 01The decision
What is being approved, by whom, and what they need to believe to say yes.
- 02Benefits with an owner
Four hundred hours in accounts payable, owned by the controller who agrees to be measured on it.
- 03The full cost
Internal time, licensing at year three, support, training, and decommissioning what it replaces.
- 04One page
The decision on a page, with the evidence behind it for anyone who wants to test it.
A case with one option is a request. Do nothing, do the minimum, do it properly — with the growing manual load, the support that ends next year and the accumulating risk priced into the first one.
We teach teams to build a case that survives a finance review: the decision being asked for, benefits with an owner attached, the full cost including the parts people forget, options including doing nothing, and one page that carries it.
Benefits need an owner, not an adjective
“Improved efficiency” is not a benefit. Four hundred hours a year in accounts payable, owned by the controller who agrees to be measured on it, is. The discipline is getting a business leader to sign up to the number before the case is submitted.
Doing nothing is an option, and it has a cost
Cases that ignore the do-nothing option look like advocacy. Cases that cost it honestly — the growing manual load, the support that ends next year, the risk accumulating — are far more persuasive, because they show the reader the trade they are actually making.
The one-page rule
If the decision cannot be made from one page, the case is not finished. Everything else is evidence, and it belongs behind that page for whoever wants to test it.
What you keep
The code and the data·Your existing relationships·Approval and control·The ability to stop·The off switchWhat that means
Start with a 45-minute briefing.
No pitch. We’ll map your situation against what actually works and tell you honestly where to start.