Project Management Primer #8 - Difference between a Business Case and Project Proposal?

It’s the same. Sometimes referred to as a ‘business case’, the project proposal states the highest level goals in a project.

It outlines the overall business goals and vision for the project as decided by the customer or client. It is sometimes drawn up well before the project starts although you may (if you are lucky) also get a hand in its creation.

The proposal should contain the vision for the project and the business goals, what your client hopes to achieve at a business level. There may also be a large amount of supporting information in order to qualify or corroborate the stated goals but the goal itself should be clear.

The supporting information might include preliminary forms of the project planning documents, such as budgets, schedules and so forth.

Project proposals are often vital documents because they are what is signed off when a commercial deal is agreed.

You need to consider these carefully as they define what you are legally committed to delivering.

The following example is based on our hypothetical sales and marketing system. The vision is stated first and after that a list of specific business and technical goals is listed. Each of the specific goals contributes directly to the vision of delivering the sales and marketing system.

Whizz-Bang Customer Relationship Mangling System

The project should deliver the best Customer, Sales and Marketing system on the market:

• Reduce time taken to process sales orders by 50% (of manual process times)

• Provide detailed management reports on a quarterly basis

• Provide detailed market and customer analysis at request

• Link sales directly to marketing initiatives to measure marketing ROI

• Provide detailed client and prospect information to account managers

• Completely automate license renewals via a website

• Provide a zero-footprint client, accessible via the Internet

• Provide an upgrade path for users of other sales order systems

You will note that this is not long or overly detailed. It provides an adequate framework for moving the project forward without getting bogged down in detail.

The goals outlined will probably be supported by a fair amount of commercial and market research but within the context of the project, the above should be more than adequate. The level of detail will depend on the size and importance of your project to the organization.

You should also note that some goals are more specific than others. For example “reduce time taken to process sales orders by 50%” is a fairly specific, readily testable goal.

On the other hand “provide detailed management reports on a quarterly basis” is a little bit vague. What kind of reports? What format? For whom?

Although more detail is desirable it is probably not necessary at this stage. The broad goals have been laid out and it will be the purpose of subsequent phases (like requirements specification) to define how they will be achieved.

Spend enough time on your proposal to make sure it is accurate and succinct. It will be the yardstick against which senior management will judge the success of your project. Don’t spend so much time on it that you delay the commencement of the project proper.

More Tutorials:

• 10 Truths for Successful Project Management

• Scope Triangle

• Critical Path

• The Mythical Man Month

• Defining the Project Scope

• Scope, Visions and Goals

• Using Project Goals to Filter Requirements

• Difference between a Business Case and Project Proposal?

• Return on Investment

• Requirements Specifications

Project Management Templates

Here are some Project Management templates you can get on our partner's site.

	The Change Management Kit provides the documentation required to control changes to the scope, deliverables and resources within the project. The Change Request template allows staff to raise a change request within the project.
	The Project Planning Kit provides you with all of the project management templates, documents and forms required to plan a project by helping you to schedule time, cost and resources.
	The Quality Management Kit includes a suite of templates used to assure and control the quality of deliverables within a project.
	Project Initiation Kit Start a new project by documenting a business case, undertaking a feasibility study, defining the project scope, recruiting key staff and locating them within a project office.
	Project Execution Kit Manage time, cost, quality, change, risks and issues during the execution of your project, as well as supplier procurement and customer acceptance.
	Project Closure Kit Helps close your project by handing over deliverables and documentation to the customer, terminating supplier contracts and releasing resources back to the business.