A model to guide the effective use of a business case for IT projects

Purpose: The paper responds to calls in recent research for a model that shows how the business case should be used throughout the project's lifetime to achieve sound governance and thereby project success. The aim of the paper is to advance theory about the effective use of the business case. Design/methodology/approach: Besides the processes and information required, the literature identified 43 organizational facilitating factors, structured into 5 categories, which are required for effective use of the business case. To offer a useful model, the authors' approach was to do a factor analysis, based on existing survey data, to reduce the number of facilitators and to validate their categorization. Findings: The findings of the paper were as follows: (1) the classification of the proposed facilitating factors was validated; (2) the number of facilitators needed to ensure that the business case is used effectively was substantially reduced and (3) a “business case effectiveness model” is proposed to clarify the relationship between the organizational facilitating factors, the business case processes and the information required to effectively use the business case. Originality/value: This is the first time that a business case effectiveness model has been proposed. Besides consolidating business case theory, it can be used to guide people and organizations on simple, affordable ways to improve their use of the business case to achieve sound governance and hence business/information technology project success.