HBR Guide to Building Your Business Case

Get your idea off the ground.

You’ve got a great idea that will increase revenue or boost productivitybut how do you get the buy-in you need to make it happen? By building a business case that clearly shows your idea’s value. That’s not always easy: Maybe you’re not sure what kind of data your stakeholders will trust. Or perhaps you’re intimidated by number crunching.

The HBR Guide to Building Your Business Case, written by project management expert Raymond Sheen, gives you the guidance and tools you need to make a strong case. You’ll learn how to:

Spell out the business need for your idea
Align your case with strategic goals
Build the right team to shape and test your idea
Calculate the return on investment
Analyze risks and opportunities
Present your case to stakeholders

Raymond Sheen, PMP, is the president of Product & Process Innovation, a consulting firm specializing in project management, product development, and process improvement. He teaches seminars on developing and reviewing business cases at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Clemson University, and the China Institute for Innovation. Sheen has managed projects for both government and private organizations. He prepared and reviewed hundreds of business cases when he worked at General Electricboth as a member of corporate staff and as an engineering executive within GE’s Industrial Systems business. He holds engineering degrees from the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He and his family reside in South Carolina.

Amy Gallo is a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review. She writes the monthly Best Practices column on HBR.org, which provides straightforward, actionable advice for managers at all levels. Before working as a writer and editor, she was a consultant at Katzenbach Partners, a strategy and organization consulting firm based in New York.