Project Management for Dummies, 2nd UK Edition

Chapter 3

Defining the Scope and Producing a Business Case

In This Chapter

Setting down clearly what your project will cover, but also what it won’t

Writing a Business Case – the justification for the project

Understanding the different types of benefit

Avoiding the pitfalls of Business Cases

All projects are created for a reason – you identify a need and devise a project to address that need. You then determine the success or failure of the project by how well it meets that need and, for projects justified by benefits, whether it delivered the business benefits that justified expending all the effort on the project in the first place. This chapter helps you develop clear boundaries for the project – the scope – and then set down the justification, or Business Case, for running the project.

The scope and Business Case go hand in hand. Each affects the other, so thinking about them together is helpful. The Business Case lists the business benefits of running the project and it may be worth adjusting the scope in order to get better business benefits. Equally, it may be advantageous ...