Project Business Case and Benefits Management Plan
Project business case and project benefits management plan are
two business documents of a project. These two documents are preparing before a
project starts.
- Project business case.
Project management activities and planning must be done based
on project business case and project benefit management plan. Project manager
must ensure that project management activities will be complied with project
business case and project benefit plan.
Project sponsor is generally accountable for preparing and
managing business case document because the ultimate owner of the business case
which the reason for starting project is the project sponsor. Since sponsor is
generally executive or high-level people, a different person might be preparing
these documents on behave of the sponsor. However, accountable will be project
sponsor at any case.
Project manager might be providing recommendations during
business case preparation and updates.
Business case documents covers “why the project is initiated”
and “benefits that will come with project”
For example, if the project is marketing project that will reach
to the new respective audience of a company, the benefit of this project can be
extended to the customer base of the company. These kinds of reasons why the
project is initiating, and the benefit of the project covered in business case
documents. Since the business case documents cover the reason of why the
project is initiated and the expected benefits once the project is completed,
management of the company evaluate these documents among other several business
documents which are portfolio of the company. Based on evaluation of the
business cases some projects might be cancelled because budget constraints of a
project or because of more urgent projects must be executed first.
- the documents included in business case.
Business case including:
- Business needs documents.
Business needs documents covers what is the main reason for
initiating the project. Business problems will be solved, or opportunity will
be maximized with the project are describe in this section.
Stakeholders where effected with the project identify and
listed in this part of business case document and high-level scope is described
in this document.
- Analysis of the situation document.
This document cover identification of risk, satisfactory,
root cause of the problems, and how this product will meet the organization strategy,
goals, and objectives.
- Recommendations documents.
Recommendations documents covers constrains, assumptions,
dependencies, etc.
- Evaluation document.
This part covers how the benefits will be deliver with the
project will be measured.
- Benefits management plan.
Benefits management plan defines the processes for creating,
maximizing, and sustaining the benefits provided by a project.
Benefits management plan are describing how and when the
expected benefits will be delivered throughout the project. It also provides approaches
about how to measure benefits.
Benefits of a project can be the actions, behaviors,
products, services, or results that provide value to the sponsoring
organization.
- Benefits management plan covers:
- Target benefits.
Target benefit are tangible or intangible expected benefits
of a project once it completed.
- Strategic alignment.
Covers how the project benefits align to the business
strategy of the organization.
For example, if the company is aiming to reach 1 million dollars
revenues by end of the year, if this project will help to reach to this goal
this is mention in strategic alignment documents.
- Time frame for realizing benefits.
Is describe when each benefit will be delivered throughout
the project. Some benefits will realize in shorter term, some will be realized
in long term. Etc.
- Benefit owner.
Is accountable person for monitoring, reporting, and
recording pf the benefits.
- Metrics.
Metrics describe how the benefits of the project will be measured
throughout the project.
- Assumptions and risks.
Assumptions about the benefits and risks for a realize the
benefits are also covers in benefits management plan.
Benefits management plan are created before the project
initiating and updating throughout the project. Realize benefits, changing
risks or benefit owner, etc., need to be updated in benefits management plan.