Purpose: The main purpose of the Business Case is to facilitate the investment decisions about the project.  It summaries the costs, benefits and the risks and enables the organisation to take a decision about funding the project or not.  This is important because it enables the organisation to take an informed decision based on realistic facts.  The business case needs to be concise and written form a business perspective.

The costs in the business case will be inevitably high level.  This is because we have not yet completed the detailed work required to produce a baseline costs.  They need to have sufficient detail and accuracy to enable an effective investment decision.  

The benefits in the business case will define the return from the completion of the project.  Typical they are monetary in nature.  For example, they might include the revenue from the sale a new product or enhancement to an existing one.  They are important because they will be evaluated against the cost to see if the business case is justified.

The risks in the business case include the risks to the delivery of the project and the benefits.  Again, at this stage they will be quite high level.  The risk is very important in reaching the right decision so is an important purpose of the business case.

The business case will also include high level timescales.  These are important to define when the benefits will start.   They will be used as part of the cost benefit for the project.  This is because the timing of the benefits can be affected by discounting factors.  The benefits may also be subject to changes in the project context.

PMDonkey Project Business Case Template.