Business case

• Defined
  • Purpose
  • Business Case defined
  • Outputs, outcomes and benefits
  • Types of Business Case
• Approach
  • Overview
  • Developing the Business Case
  • Verifying and maintaining the Business Case
  • Confirming the benefits
• Approach - The contents
  • Typically contains
  • Reasons
  • Business options
  • Expected benefits
  • Timescale
  • Costs
  • Investment appraisal
  • Major risks
• Responsibilities

Key sections

• Introduction
• Business case
• Organization
• Quality
• Plans
• Risk
• Change
• Progress
• Introduction to processes
• Starting up a projectDirecting a project
• Initiating a project
• Controlling a stage
• Managing Product Delivery
• Managing a Stage Boundary
• Closing a Project
• Tailoring PRINCE2 to the project environment
• Directing Projects with PRINCE2

The PRINCE2 approach

Confirming the benefits

The approach to confirming benefits is to:

• Identify the benefits
• Select objective measures that reliably prove the benefits
• Collect the baseline measures (from which the improvements will be quantified)
• Decide how, when and by whom the benefit measures will be collected.

The Senior User(s) specifies the benefits and is held to account by demonstrating to corporate or programme management that the forecast benefits that formed the basis of project approval are in fact realized. This may involve a commitment beyond the life of the project as it is likely that many benefits will not be realized until after it has closed.

This poses a dilemma because, once the project closes, the ‘temporary organization’ is disbanded along with the framework (and in particular the funding and resources) to carry out any measurement activities.

PRINCE2® overcomes this dilemma through defining a Benefits Review Plan.
The project’s Benefits Review Plan will use the detailed Business Case to define the scope, timing and responsibility of a number of reviews based on the timing and nature of the expected benefits.

By default, the Executive is responsible for ensuring that benefits reviews are planned and executed, but there are circumstances where this may not always be the case:

• For projects in a programme environment, the project’s Benefits Review Plan may be produced and executed by the programme, as one of the roles of the programme is to coordinate the realization of the benefits of its projects.
• If the corporate organization has a centre of excellence or some form of performance monitoring unit, it may undertake the responsibility for measuring benefits of all projects within the organization
• For post-project measurement activities, the responsibility for benefits reviews will transfer from the Executive to corporate or programme management as the project closes (as the reviews will need to be funded and resourced).

The Benefits Review Plan is first created by the Project Manager in the initiation stage and is submitted to the Project Board for approval when seeking project authorization.
If corporate or programme management are to manage or participate in the benefits reviews, the Project Board may need to seek approval from corporate or programme management.
The Benefits Review Plan is updated towards the end of each stage with actual benefits achieved, and a revised plan is created for any remaining reviews whether within or beyond the life of the project.

As the Benefits Review Plan may be managed by the project, corporate or programme management, PRINCE2 recommends that it is kept separate from the Project Plan and Stage Plans.

The benefits that can be measured during the life of a project should be reported by the Project Manager in the End Stage Report.
Any residual benefits should be re-examined and their forecast updated as part of the Managing a Stage Boundary process.

The post-project benefits review(s) will involve corporate or programme management holding the Senior User(s) to account by asking them to provide evidence of how the individual benefits allocated to them have been gained in comparison to those benefits promised to justify the cost and risk of the project when it was authorized.
The post-project benefits review(s) will also review the performance of the project’s products in operational use and identify whether there have been any side-effects (beneficial or adverse) that may provide useful lessons for other projects.

PRINCE2® is a Registered Trade Mark of the Office of Government Commerce in the United Kingdom and other countries.