Tasleemat Forms Guide

Project Artifact: Business Case

Document Reference: PMO-01.01

This document provides a comprehensive, professional reference to understand the purpose and effective usage of the Business Case in alignment with the Tasleemat framework.

1. What?

A documented economic feasibility study used to establish the validity of the benefits of a selected component, and to obtain the authorisation to proceed. It records the need and what inaction costs, the situation as it stands and as it would stand without the project, the options considered against doing nothing with their life-of costs and discounted results, and the measures by which the decision will later be judged.

2. Why?

Because a project is one of several ways of spending the same money, and because the decision not to fund is a decision too. Without a written comparison the choice is made by whoever argues most persuasively, and the option of doing nothing is never stated because nobody has to justify it. The case exists to put a number on both sides of that comparison and to record which option was chosen and why, so the decision can be revisited later against the same criteria rather than against whatever is remembered.

3. When?

This artifact is primarily prepared, utilized, and updated during the BUSINESS AND VALUE DELIVERY Process Group of the project lifecycle. It is written before the project is authorised and re-examined whenever a trigger is reached, so that a case written once and never reopened describes an opportunity that has since changed.

4. Who?

Responsibilities: Initiated by the Project Sponsor, drafted by the Project Manager, and validated by key stakeholders. The business owner and the finance controller sign it, because the two questions a reader brings to a business case are "is this our problem" and "is this the cheapest way to deal with it", and neither is answered by the project team alone.

Tailoring Tips

The options table may be reduced to the two or three options that are genuinely live. A table listing every variant considered reads as an argument already won, because the rejected options are chosen to lose.
The do-nothing option may be described briefly, but it should not be omitted. It is the baseline every other option is measured against, and leaving it out removes the comparison that makes the case a case.
Net present value may be replaced by a simpler financial measure where the organisation does not discount cash flows, but the measure used must be stated with its period and rate, or the figure cannot be reproduced.
The case may be issued in summary form for a steering group with the full analysis in an annex. The summary may shorten the argument but should not drop the cost of inaction, since that is the figure the group is there to compare against the ask.

Alignment & Dependencies

1. Pre-requisites & Inputs (Upstream Dependencies)

Mandatory:
- Strategic Business Objectives (External)
- Cost-Benefit Financial Baseline (External)
Optional / Contextual:
- Portfolio Roadmap (PMO-00.01)
- Feasibility & Market Analysis (External)

2. Downstream Dependents

Mandatory:
- Benefits Management Plan (PMO-01.02)
- Project Charter (PMO-03.01)
- Value Realization Register (PMO-01.03)
Optional / Contextual:
- Product Vision (PMO-03.02)
- AI Use Case Canvas (PMO-02.04)

5. How?

To accurately and professionally complete the BUSINESS CASE, the responsible party must populate the following sections based on the project context (ensure parameters.md is referenced for global project variables):

Need Statement: The problem or opportunity in one sentence, stated so that a reader who has never met the organisation can tell whether it has been solved. A need written as a goal cannot be falsified, and an unfalsifiable need is the reason a project that delivered everything it promised can still be judged a failure.
Why Now: What makes this the moment to act. A need that has been true for a decade is not refuted by a business case, it is only dated by one, so the trigger has to be named: a regulation, a contract expiry, a competitor move, a cost that has crossed a threshold, a capability that has become scarce.
Who Feels It: The stakeholder group that experiences the problem, and the one that pays for the remedy. These are often not the same group, and a case written only from the sufferer's point of view produces an approval that the payer later withdraws.
Cost of Inaction: What happens if nothing is done, stated as a figure or a dated event rather than as a risk. This is the only number that competes with the cost of the investment, and a business case without it is an assertion of desire.
Current State: How things stand now, with the figures that would be measured today. Record the baseline, because every later claim of improvement is measured against it and a baseline invented after the project is a baseline chosen to flatter the project.
Future State Without the Project: What the situation becomes if the project is not funded, in the same terms as the current state. This is the counterfactual, and it is the only part of the analysis that makes the investment comparable to anything.
Root Causes: The causes beneath the symptoms, distinguishing causes from the constraints that merely limit the damage. A business case that treats a constraint as a cause proposes a project that removes the constraint and leaves the cause in place.
Constraints and Assumptions: What must hold for the analysis to be valid, and what is being assumed rather than known. Assumptions recorded here can be tested later; assumptions buried in prose cannot.
Option Description: The distinct options considered, including the do-nothing option, since it is the baseline every other option is measured against and it is the one most often left out of the table.
Benefits: The benefits of the option, each with how it will be measured. A benefit with no measure is a hope, and hopes do not survive a funding review.
Costs: The full life of costs, not only the build. A case that counts only build cost is comparing a number to a number, and the difference between the two is usually the whole argument.
Risks: The risks that would change the outcome, and what happens to the case if each occurs. A business case with no risks section is asserting that none exist, which is itself a risk and always an unconvincing one.
Net Present Value: The net present value, with the discount rate and the period stated. Without them the figure is not reproducible and cannot be compared with any other case competing for the same money.
Recommendation: The recommended option and the reason, stated so that a reader can disagree with the recommendation without being disagreeing with the analysis. A recommendation that can only be accepted whole is not a recommendation.
Evaluation Criteria: The measures by which success will be judged, each with a baseline, a target and a date.
Review and Approval: Who reviews the case, when, and what decision each reviewer is being asked to make. A review that asks for information rather than for a decision produces a meeting rather than an approval.
Trigger to Reconsider: The event that would cause the case to be reopened, such as a change in the cost of the inputs or a material shift in the benefit. A business case with no reopening trigger is a document that can never be wrong.

📥 Associated Templates

6. Reference Example

A fully completed, gold-standard reference example illustrating this artifact in practice is available:

📖 Completed Example: 01_01_Business_Case_Example.md