[Title] Business Case

[Organization’s Name]

[Author’s Name]

[Date]

Executive Summary

• Briefly summarize the proposal• Executive summaries typically contain the salient points from each

of the subsequent sections:o Current situationo Analysis & Recommendationo Conclusion

• Be sure to engage the audience's interest in reviewing the remainder of the proposal

Current Situation

• Purpose is to clearly state the problem or opportunity facing your organization in a quantifiable way

• Express success in terms that contribute to the strategic plan (especially your CFO) such as increasing revenue, decreasing costs, or minimizing risk

• Discuss what is likely to materialize if the situation doesn't change

Analysis & Recommendation

• In the opener, provide clear, specific details about the alternative you suggest the organization adopt

• Explain how your proposal solves the problem or capitalizes on the opportunity identified in the current situation section

Analysis & Recommendation

• Summarize the alternatives you considered in a simple chart that describes the financial analysis, intangible benefits, and risks

• Use graphs to display the most powerful financial aspects of the suggested option

Option 1 Option 2 Option 3

Financial Benefit

Intangible Benefits

Risks

Forgetting Curve

Memory: Contribution to Experimental Psychology by Herman Ebbinghaus, 1885/1913.

Why do L&D business cases fail?

Stakeholder Priorities

Stakeholder 1E.g., CMO

Stakeholder 2E.g., Legal

Stakeholder’s priorities

Stakeholder’s needs

Required solution features

Improved customer satisfaction

Improved data security

Website reliability (no glitches)

24/7 Customer Service

Thought-Leader Perspective

“Elearning, particularly when made available in innovative formats that enable collaboration, moment-of-need learning, learner engagement and learner generated content, enables learning in our geographically distributed workplaces, brings learners up to speed quickly on required content and moreover improves retention – all factors that improve other critical business metrics including productivity, engagement and even revenue per head.”

-Laci Loew

“With an increasingly diverse workforce, a one-size-fits-all approach just doesn’t work anymore. Different people want and need to learn in different ways.”

-Todd Tauber

“Our opportunity is to recognize that each individual that comes to work brings with them wisdom that can best be harnessed if we figure out how they can best learn and function within their own generational profile, but also to spend serious time working across those generations, because the ultimate style is the success style of the culture of your organization, and that is ageless.”

-Elliott Masie

Conclusion

• Recap the benefits of acting on the selected option in terms that support the organization's strategic goals

• Consider including benchmarks to show how this compares to other “best in class” approaches

• Outline the high level implementation milestones, target dates, and the responsible parties

• Clearly flag the date when a decision should be made and what the implications are of not acting on or before that date