Harvard ManageMentor — BUSINESS CASE DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

Group Learning Project Plan:

Communicate Your Business Case to Decision Makers
Use this learning project plan to define your project, schedule project activities, identify necessary resources,
track your progress, and reflect on your project outcomes. Consider adding more or different reflection
questions in Part III to fit your project.

Part I. Define your group learning project

Project description:
Over a 30-day period, team members who have developed a business case will learn how to communicate a business case to
key decision makers. They will learn the following: (1) how to determine the best approach to presenting the case, using the
Key Idea: Understand your audience; (2) how to formulate their case as a document or a presentation, following any
company requirements related to format; and (3) how to deliver the document or presentation to decision makers.
Throughout the project, team members will use one another as learning resources and will gather periodic feedback from
their manager about the effectiveness of their efforts. The final product of the project will be the document or presentation
which presents the team’s business case.

Project goal(s):
Help team members learn how to effectively and compellingly present a business case to decision makers, and to increase
the likelihood that the members of the team will receive the approval and support needed to execute their idea.

Project participants:

Part II. Plan and track your progress

Project step Resources needed Target completion Check when
date completed
1. Meet as a team to determine how best to  Key Idea: Day 7
present your business case to decision Understand your
makers. Identify the major elements that audience (in the Learn
should be presented, and what level of detail section of the Harvard
would be appropriate for your audience. ManageMentor topic
Discuss your ideas with your manager, and Business Case
incorporate his or her input into your plan. Development).
 Steps for Building
Support for Your
Business Case (in the
Steps section of the
Business Case
Development topic).

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2. Meet as a team to:  Company requirements Day 14
 Format your business case as a related to business-case
document or a presentation, following format, if available.
any company requirements related to  Tips for Writing Your
format. Share your document or Business Case (in the
presentation with your manager, and Tips section of the
incorporate his or her feedback. Business Case
 Reflect on lessons learned so far Development topic).
regarding the process of outlining and  If your team has access
producing a business plan presentation, to the Harvard
for example: what additional inputs ManageMentor topic
might be helpful in assessing the Presentation Skills,
audience, how to decide what consider using Tips for
presentation type would be most Creating Visuals from
effective, and how to leverage unique the topic as an
team member skills in crafting a additional resource.
presentation

3. Deliver the document or presentation you’ve  If your team has access Day 21
developed to the decision makers whose to the Harvard
support your idea will need. If you’re making ManageMentor topic
a presentation, invite your manager to be Presentation Skills,
part of the audience, so he or she can consider using Tips for
evaluate your effectiveness and provide Presenting Effectively
feedback. If your company’s format permits, from the topic as an
request direct feedback from decision-makers additional resource.

4. As soon as appropriate after the presentation Day 28

or document delivery, meet as a team to
share your thoughts about how your business
plan has been received by decision-makers,
as well as to offer reflections on how the
team worked together to design the
communication process for the proposed
business plan.

5. Meet with your manager to debrief the  Reflection questions Day 30

learning project, using the reflection found in Part III of this
questions in Part III of this tool. tool.

Part III. Reflect on your project outcomes

At the conclusion of your group learning project, use the following questions to reflect on your project
experience and outcomes. Consider answering the questions individually or with your project team members.
What did you learn as a result of the project?

© 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved.

What did you find most challenging about this project? How did you surmount those challenges?

What techniques did you find most useful for determining how best to present your business case to decision makers? What
techniques did you find least useful?

If your team delivered the business case in the form of a document, what was most effective about the document? Least
effective? How could you make such a document more effective in the future? If you delivered the business case as a
presentation, what do you think was most effective and least effective about the presentation? What presentation skills (if
any) would you like to work on in the future?

Based on your insights gained from the project experience, what will you or your group do differently when presenting
business cases in the future?

What suggestions or tips would you give to future participants doing the same or a similar project?

Part IV. Share your results

Share your findings with others outside of your group: At the conclusion of the project, consider sharing your
lessons learned and project results with others in your organization. For example, you could hold an
information sharing session over lunch or post your findings on a discussion forum.

© 2010 Harvard Business School Publishing. All rights reserved.