In today's economic climate, the process of proposing-and acquiring support for-any project has become a far more rigorous exercise. In this month's Management Insights by Peter Dillon-Parkin, learn how to use the six-step ADAPTS process to build a successful business case for your project that ensures a return on investment.
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Creating and Proving Business
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project, so management didn’t fully trust the cost/benefit
Is this a familiar scenario? You need to get management
analysis.
approval for your project to proceed. In a panic, you look for
the last proposal you wrote—or get a copy of the last successful
For the purposes of this article, let’s presume the latter
one—and use it as a template. To be persuasive, you frame the
outcome. In a proposal, tangible costs and benefits do need
benefits of the initiative by advancing “the numbers”, believing
to be compared to each other, but many businesses are also
it’s what the business cares most about.
seeking to achieve benefits that are harder to quantify. For
example, “improved efficiency” is valuable, but how do you
But here’s the catch: You don’t have a clue how to prove your
prove (or quantify) that value?
initiative’s benefits using “the numbers” because there are
intangible benefits that are difficult to quantify in both the short
Rather than start with the numbers, consider the real goals
and long term. You struggle with determining the cash value
of any proposal:
of “increased efficiency” and “improved morale”. Plus, your
• Clearly outline what is being proposed
knowledge of the financial factors affecting the return from this
project is limited—so even the value from the tangible benefits • Demonstrate the ways in which the proposal benefits
is suspect. Your recourse is to invent numbers for the intangible the business
benefits and mix them in with the tangible ones. You do all this,
• Make sure your proposal is understood by all stakeholders
all the while knowing full well that cash is historically the least
(not just those with finance degrees)
effective predictor of project success.
This is what’s involved in creating a successful business case,
On the up side, generating costs for the project is simpler, and
and it can be easily done using a simple six-step process called
once you have your cost and benefit numbers, you can provide
ADAPTS.
a cost/benefit analysis. However, since the benefit numbers you
invented are qualitatively different from your cost numbers,
your analysis is suspect at best.
Nevertheless, you persevere and submit the proposal. One of
Peter Dillon-Parkin
two things happens:
Able Solution UK Ltd
1. Your proposal is approved because the key decision had
already been made. Writing the proposal was simply an Our Management Insights article for this month addresses the
internal process requirement and it was never actually read. fundamentals of creating a clear and persuasive business case. Author
Peter Dillon- Parkin, a documentation specialist and business analyst,
2. Your proposal is read but rejected. While it had many
offers a six-step process for success.
numbers, it never made a strong case for pursuing the
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