Writing a business case for project tracking software
Business cases provide justification for undertaking a project, programme or portfolio and, as such, evaluate the benefits, costs and risks of adopting the solution or solutions proposed whilst also providing realistic alternatives. As such, you may have been asked by your Senior Management Team or CEO to put together a business case for PMO software. This is how to write a business case for project tracking software…
How to write a business case for project tracking software
Consider why you need PMO tools: why do you need project tracking software? What are the challenges you’re facing or the barriers to successful project completion that keep arising, and how would PMO tools alleviate them?
Documenting practical ways project tracking software will support your teams, streamline your processes and help you successfully complete projects will help you build a persuasive business case.
Know exactly what you need: firmly linked to our first point is knowing exactly what you and your project teams need from PMO software and finding a solution that provides you with that.
Although you may not find the perfect solution that does absolutely everything you want it to do, we recommend that you do your research and find a PMO tool that offers close to it.
With this, keep in mind that a lot of project tracking software will offer an element of flexibility and customisable functionality meaning that, if a solution doesn’t quite offer exactly what you need, with a little tweaking and custom building, it could!
Research costs: how much your ideal PMO software will cost will be centric to your business case. You need to be able to show the cost alongside the benefits; how much will project tracking software cost the organisation but what are the short & long term benefits to the organisation of full scale adoption? Essentially, you’ll need to provide an expected ROI.
For example – whilst a PMO tool may cost £100 per month or £1200 a year, you expect the improvement in productivity, communication, time management and risk mitigation to save your organisation £5000 per year, and increase your project portfolio by 25%.
Challenges and solutions: it’s also a good idea to pick out a number of very specific challenges your project team consistently and habitually face and pinpoint exactly how the proposed PMO software will provide the solution.
Implementation timeline: propose a realistic timeline of implementation, including any necessary training time or time needed for configuration. A good business case will consider how long it will take to fully adopt the software desired.
Writing a business case for project tracking software should be compelling and benefit driven, backed up by statistics and a realistic ROI.
If you’re writing a business case for PMO software and need to know more about how our solution could benefit your project team, please book a free demo or contact us to learn more.
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