Better Business Cases in Aotearoa/New Zealand
The Better Business Cases approach was developed collectively by the New Zealand Treasury, HM Treasury (UK) and the Welsh Government to better support fully-informed and evidence-based decisions for Public spending. While initially developed for government, it represents the next wave of thinking in terms of providing the best benefit value for all organisation types. It is a thinking and planning tool rather than a compliance tool.
The developer of this course, Lewis Weatherall led the project team to initially develop the Better Business Cases guidance for The Treasury. He has since been heavily involved in training new practitioners as part of supporting the adoption of the Better Business Cases programme across the wider state sector and local government.
This course contains a pragmatic and real life approach developed from experience in developing business cases within New Zealand. Rather than sticking to theoretical guidance this course takes an informed, pragmatic approach applicable to a range of organisational contexts. Extensive hands on exercises are presented to anchor the learning.
Better Business Cases extends the traditional business case development approach by asking:-
- What is the underlying problem or opportunity we are trying to address?
- How does this fit within organisational strategy?
- Does this fit with or clash with other work we are doing within the organisation?
- Have we taken the stakeholders with us on the journey and taken their suggestions on board?
- Have we considered all the feasible options?
- Does solution best balance benefits, cost and risks?
- Are there suppliers who can deliver this and will the deal represent value for money?
- Is the organisation setup to manage the project or programme successfully?
The Better Business Cases approach is structured around the UK Five Case Model. The Five Case Model provides a disciplined, step by step approach that helps to ensure that each of the key aspects of a robust investment proposal is explicitly and systematically addressed as part of the business case development process. This ensures that important aspects of the analysis are less likely to be omitted or under-weighted.
- The Strategic Case demonstrates that the proposal is strategically aligned and is supported by a compelling case for change
- The Economic Case ensures that a wide range of investment options have been appraised and that the preferred option optimises value for money
- The Commercial Case ensures that any proposed procurement is commercially attractive and viable
- The Financial Case demonstrates that the preferred solution is affordable and can be funded
- The Management Case provides assurance that processes and capabilities are in place to ensure that the preferred solution can be successfully delivered.
BBC practice is rapidly growing. In New Zealand, BBC is being adopted by a growing number of organisations, not just for capital expenditure and not just for large scale funding proposals. BBC has demonstrated that it is a flexible, pragmatic and common sense tool for supporting business decisions in a wide range of contexts. It provides managers with a valuable tool for successfully delivering on their strategic plans, particularly in complex, dynamic or resource-constrained environments.
BBC integrates fully with good practice programme and project management. In BBC, project or programme delivery commences with a robust business case that plans early for successful delivery of objectives.
About the Course Developer
Lewis Weatherall is New Zealand’s leading expert on the Better Business Cases process and practice. Lewis led the project team to initially develop the Better Business Cases guidance for The Treasury, first released in July 2010. In addition to his successful consultancy, Business Case Consulting Limited, Lewis has since trained over 600 New Zealand practitioners and reviewers to use the methodology in practice. Business Case Consulting Limited is unique in that Better Business Cases process is the core area of expertise, not an add-on. It provides a full range of BBC advisory services including full business case development, workshop facilitation, process design and independent quality assurance.
Lewis is a registered BBC Practitioner and Trainer. He is endorsed by the Better Business Case (BBC) International Standards Board and NZ Treasury as both an Expert Practitioner and an Expert Reviewer. In addition, Lewis is also a trained Investment Management Standard (ILM) facilitator. For more details, see http://www.projectresults.co.nz/lewis-weatherall-new-zealand-bbc-expert-and-consultant.html
About the Trainer
Paul Sutton is committed to helping organisations improve their business case, project, programme and portfolio management capability. To do this Paul has been working with a wide range of organisations developing capability through training, coaching, consulting, process improvement and hands-on delivery. For the past 2 years Paul has been co-training with Lewis in BBC.
Paul combines in-depth process knowledge with 20 years of pragmatic hands-on experience in both business case development and project and programme management. Paul has a broad picture focus combined with strong analytical thinking. He is an excellent communicator in both oral and written forms. He is also a very dynamic and engaging presenter. As a result he is able to give practical application to a huge range of questions and scenarios.
Paul is a Registered BBC, PRINCE2, PRINCE2 Agile and MSP trainer. He also holds the PMP (Project Management Professional) certification from PMI (Project Management Institute) and is a Gateway Reviewer.
For the past four years Paul has been on the organising committee for the PRINCE2 Users Group. This industry group is intended as an ideas sharing and capability building forum for the users of BBC, PRINCE2, MSP and other UK government approaches. Paul is also an active member of PMI. For more details see http://www.projectresults.co.nz/paul-sutton-expert-trainer-and-consultant.html.