The Business Case for HCM Initiative Part 7: Presenting the Case

This article is the final installment of our series on how to build a business case for human capital management initiatives. So far, we have described how you can prepare to make your case. We have discussed how to:

1. prepare yourself and your team, gather intelligence on who makes decisions, identify a sponsor, and form valuable alliances;
2. define and analyze a business need, build a team, and develop solutions;
3. work with finance to analyze the costs of your proposed solutions;
4. collaborate with Line of Business (LOB) leaders to estimate the benefits of your solutions;
5. calculate return on investment and prepare the ROI analysis; and
6. evaluate, calculate, and mitigate risks.

You now have a solid foundation and the information you need to prepare a winning business case.

Develop the Business Case Document

Your organization’s business practices will define how you shape and deliver your business case. Large organizations are likely to have a very rigid, prescribed format. Smaller companies may define it loosely or not at all.

Work with your executive sponsor to structure your case. Your sponsor knows what your leaders want to see.

Study other cases -- both approved and rejected proposals. You may learn more from failures than successes.

Business Case Structure

If you don’t have a prescribed format, you can use the structure outlined here.

Executive Summary

The executive summary may be the only thing decision makers read. Tell a brief, compelling story of how you identified a business need and developed a solution.

• Identify the characters in the story.
• Describe the business need and potential impact on the business.
• Describe the solution and how it will solve the business need.
• State the project cost and ROI. If you are using the payback period ROI method, state how long until the project pays for itself.

Business Need

• Describe the problem or opportunity and link it to the business strategy.
• Convey urgency with data.

Solution

• Describe the solution and why you choose it.
• List alternatives and why you did not choose them.
• State the impact of doing nothing.
• Describe what business process the change affects and how.

Project Plan

• Describe major milestones and deliverables.
• Identify team members, business functions, and external entities and the roles of each.

Impact

• Describe the impact on the company.
• Quantify the benefits.
• Link each benefit to a key performance indicator (KPI) and the strategic plan.

Risks

• Discuss your risk analysis and mitigation plan.
• Include your risk analysis worksheet in the appendices.

Return on Investment

• State the ROI, payback period, or net present value, whichever is appropriate.
• Discuss the factors in ROI calculation and the rationale for estimates.
• Include a summary ROI calculation worksheet.
• Add the detailed ROI spreadsheet as an appendix.

Wrap-up

• Restate the business need.
• State why the solution will work.
• Restate ROI.

Be ruthless in your editing. Remove every unnecessary word, and don’t jazz up your language with long, complicated words. Where a simple word will suffice, use it. Make sure each idea flows into the next, moving readers to the final decision.

Build Your Presentation

Your presentation should be a summary of your business case document. Avoid animations and gimmicks. Your purpose is to make an appeal that will engage your audience’s emotions. Instead of trying to entertain, seek to engage with simple, direct language.

• Do not use paragraphs of text. People do not want to read your slides. They want to glance at them to grasp the central ideas.
• Use simple charts and graphs that clearly convey a single message.
• Try to keep phrases and bullet points to six words or less and present no more than four ideas on one slide. Remove articles (a, an, the).
• Avoid clutter. Keep presentations clean and crisp, especially if you are presenting to remote users who might use mobile devices.
• Do not use stock photos unless they are relevant and advance the story. Marketing research has shown they can be a negative distraction.

Get Feedback

Review your case with your sponsor, your Finance partner, and your LoB partners. Use their suggestions to fine tune your presentation and tighten up weak areas.

Know Your Audience

Ask your sponsor to give you information on the personalities in the review committee.

• Study their strategic plans and priorities.
• Understand their concerns and address them in your presentation.
• If you can, learn what their “hot buttons” are, both positive and adverse.

Rehearse

Some years ago we were talking with Mike Mooney, the principal trombonist of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. One of us asked how he dealt with the pressure of knowing 2,000 people were waiting for him to make a mistake so they could audition for his job. He replied, “I practice so much I can’t make a mistake.”

If you present your case in person, practice your delivery in front of a critical live audience. Ask your test audience to question your assumptions, jump ahead or back in the presentation, and interrupt.

• Practice using the multimedia technology, and prepare for it to go wrong.
• Make eye contact with each person in the room for short intervals.
• Pause for a few seconds before you answer a question, then nod slightly. It signals you heard the question and can respond – and gives you time to think.
• To avoid the newbie shuffle, plant your feet. If you move, pick a spot and move to it, then plant your feet again.
• Practice not looking at your presentation screen.

Be like Mike. Practice enough so you won’t make a mistake.

Present Your Case

When you make your pitch, remember to face challenges If you are presenting your case to busy people. They may not be a willing, attentive audience. It could be a group of executives who are reviewing 30 other cases along with yours. Here are a few things we can share from our experience.

• Understand their impatience. It is not personal. They may be distracted by a business problem.
• Do not give them anything to read until you finish. If you do, they will read the summary, glance at the ROI calculation, then start checking their messages or find an excuse to leave.
• There will be a “gunslinger” waiting to shoot down your proposal at the first opportunity. Do your homework and anticipate the challenge.
• Be flexible. You may have 20 minutes on the agenda, but you could get only five. They might hold you for an hour.
• Handle disaster with humor.
• Identify in advance which slides you will use if your time is cut. You may have time only for the executive summary and ROI slide, or only the summary. If your opening statement is a compelling message and the numbers work, you are on your way to approval.

Next Steps

Regardless of whether your initiative gets approval, you will have made some positive gains on many fronts. You have:

• started a conversation about the contribution of the workforce and how leaders can improve business results with better people management.
• pointed out the need for human capital analytics to understand the impact of workforce behavior on business results.
• Created a network of alliances in your organization.
• Built a human capital management project team.

Take what you have learned and start on your next objective. Build on your success.

If you are having trouble building a business case, feel free to contact us. We will be happy to share our experience in getting human capital management projects approved.

Pixentia is a full-service technology company dedicated to helping clients solve business problems, improve the capability of their people, and achieve better results.