In an environment with too much to do and not enough money to do it, many business case struggle to get approved and those worthy investments do not get the opportunity to get off the ground.
Maybe you’re jumping to the solution?
Besides competition for available funds, one of the primary reasons for failing to have a business case approved can be a lack of clarity of the ‘why’ of a business case. To gain this clarity, it is paramount to provide a robust explanation of the problem it is solving, the benefits it will deliver and the strategic response it will achieve for its stakeholders.
One of the most efficient ways to answer these questions is by working with a Department of Treasury and Finance (Victoria) accredited facilitator. They will guide you through a set of Investment Management Standard workshops specifically designed to answer these vital lines of inquiry.
The Investment Management Standard (IMS) is the overarching name for the Investment Logic Map (ILM) and other accompanying tools.
- The IMS is a series of facilitated workshops that enable us to understand problems, outline benefits and generate an appropriate policy or investment response quickly and cheaply.
- The IMS workshops result in simple, common sense ‘maps’ to demonstrate this logic. ILM’s are often used for early scoping to decide whether to move to the business case stage, as a Gateway checkpoint, or as an investment evaluation technique.
The IMS has expanded to become a system that can support the primary investment decision-making functions of any organisation, on multiple levels.
At the heart of the IMS are a collection of two-hour facilitated workshops. Each of these two-hour workshops is committed to an intelligent, challenging debate about an investment. This debate will bring you closer to developing a compelling business case that is more likely to be approved.
The IMS objectively leverages the collective knowledge of a carefully selected group of subject matter experts, using informed discussion to deeply understand the context of investment.
The workshops are run by a skilled independent facilitator who acts as an unbiased observer, testing and challenging assumptions during the session. The discussion and outputs validate that the:
- investment proposals are clear, compelling and evidence-based
- benefits are clearly articulated, and measures agreed upon
- interventions are strategic, realistic and feasible
- solutions are robust and there is a clear understanding of the scope required to respond to the business need and produce the agreed benefits.
Originally developed at the Victorian Department of Treasury and Finance by Terry Wright (retired), Greg Gough (Ideas Advisory), Eldar Salkovic (Innox Solutions) and Jeremy Smart (Smart Logic Mapping), the IMS challenges organisations to make fit-for-purpose, evidence-based investment decisions.
Research conducted by DTF and KPMG has shown that by using these methodologies your business case will be more compelling, be quicker to develop and will help bring your business case much closer to business case approval.
Cover image by Allan Rotgers shared under CC BY 2.0