Business Case Writer
Write structured business cases that help decision-makers evaluate investments, initiatives, and strategic changes. Includes financial analysis, risk assessment, and clear recommendations.
Usage
Describe the initiative, problem being solved, budget range, and decision-makers. The skill produces:
- Executive Summary: One-page overview with recommendation
- Problem Statement: Current state, pain points, cost of inaction
- Options Analysis: 3+ options compared on cost, benefit, risk, and timeline
- Financial Analysis: NPV, ROI, payback period, sensitivity analysis
- Risk Assessment: Key risks with probability, impact, and mitigation
- Implementation Plan: Phased approach with milestones
- Recommendation: Clear recommendation with rationale
Examples
- Technology Investment: "Write a business case for migrating from on-premise servers to AWS. Current infra costs $25K/month, frequent downtime, 3 FTEs managing it."
- New Hire: "Build a business case for hiring a dedicated DevOps engineer. Currently, 4 developers each spend 20% of their time on infrastructure."
- Process Change: "Create a business case for implementing automated testing. Current manual QA takes 2 weeks per release, we ship monthly."
- Market Expansion: "Write a business case for launching our product in Brazil. Address market size, localization costs, regulatory requirements, and projected timeline to breakeven."
Guidelines
- Always include a "do nothing" option as baseline for comparison
- Quantify both tangible (revenue, cost) and intangible (morale, brand) benefits
- Use conservative estimates and show sensitivity to key assumptions
- Present financial analysis in terms the audience understands (not everyone knows NPV)
- Include a risk register with specific mitigation strategies
- Keep the executive summary to one page — it may be the only page read
- Anticipate objections and address them proactively in the document