Business case effectiveness: the critical role of the organization

Abstract

PurposeLiterature indicates that the business case for projects is difficult to use and suggests that there are organizational factors that can facilitate effective use of the business case. This paper aims to identify such facilitators, measure their presence and importance, and relate them to the actual practice of business case processes.Design/methodology/approachA cross sectional quantitative method was used, with data on facilitators and business case process usage gathered through an online questionnaire.FindingsThe findings for the 43 organizational facilitators are that each one is considered more important than its presence in the respondents' organizations. High correlations emerge between the presence of the facilitators and the use of business case processes, indicating the pivotal role of the facilitators.Research limitations/implicationsThe research was conducted for business IT projects implemented by organizations based in South Africa. It furthers our understanding of project business cases and suggests additional research avenues in this area.Practical implicationsThe findings indicate that organizations could improve key facilitators at an affordable cost. Such improvement would enable more effective use of the business case throughout the project's lifetime – from initial concept until planned benefits have been substantially realized. Better use of the business case would also support governance and increase the success rate of business IT projects.Originality/valueOrganizational facilitators of business case processes are identified and categorized for the first time, leading to measurements of their perceived importance and presence in organizations. Hence, the relationship between these facilitators and actual business case usage is determined, suggesting areas of optimum impact.

A model to guide the effective use of a business case for IT projects

“…The figure also gives insight Effective use of the business case in IT into how the project might be negatively affected if many of the factors are inhibitors, if key information is missing or if processes are omitted. The model is supported by a number of premises as follows that were alluded to earlier: (1) there is a strong correlation between all five facilitator presence categories and usage of the business case processes (Einhorn et al, 2020), (2) the business case underpins sound governance (APM, 2006;OGC, 2009;PMI, 2017) and (3) both governance and use of the business case have a positive bearing on project success (Musawir et al, 2017).…”

“…Factor analysis on the presence of the business case facilitators 5.1 The objectives This section aims to address objectives 1 and 2 of the study (Section 4.1) by ( 1) reducing the facilitating factors present in the organization to a smaller, more manageable number and (2) by validating, or improving, the facilitator categorization given in Figure 2. Table 1 gives the facilitators, mentioned in Section 4.2 and drawn from Einhorn et al (2020), grouped into their facilitator categories (OC, PS, PI, CR and TR) which are explained in Section 3.3.…”

“…The organizational facilitators, the factors needed to facilitate the gathering of relevant information and to use it in the business case processes, were drawn from Einhorn et al (2020) who document a total of 43 facilitators. A parallel can be drawn with research by Wearne (2014) who, when investigating problems in IT projects, found that 75% of the problems are organizational and only 25% are project related.…”

“…The model applies to a project which follows the "classical" project lifetime outlined in Einhorn et al (2020). In other situations, the model will only partially apply, examples being as follows:…”

“…The model should show how the processes, the information and the facilitators relate to each other. Fortunately, the process, facilitators and information components of such a model are available in the literature (Einhorn et al, 2019(Einhorn et al, , 2020Marnewick and Einhorn, 2019). However, no analysis has hitherto been done to tie these three pillars together into a model.…”