An Expert View on How a Business Case Process Can Be Executed: A Delphi Study

Abstract

Information technology (IT) spending is still on the rise while enterprises are confronted with the dilemma of how to ensure value realisation from business investments enabled by IT. It is recognised that a detailed business case is crucial to realise this value potential, yet its usage is not as anchored in day‐to‐day practice as might be assumed. Some organisations develop weak business cases while other business cases gather dust after investment approval. In addition, most impact can only be achieved from a business if it is used continuously throughout the investment life cycle. Appropriate and continuous usage can support benefit realisation and increase the investment success. The present study therefore wants to investigate how such a continuous business case approach can be reached. We start from a conceptual model that takes a process perspective on business cases, which is operationalised by way of multiple individual business case practices. While in prior exploratory research several of these practices have been identified, the aim of this study is threefold: (1) to obtain a validated list of business case practices and definitions, (2) to understand the practices’ perceived effectiveness / ease of implementation, and (3) to identify a minimum set of key business case practices. In order to achieve these objectives, a group of academic and practitioner experts participated in a Delphi study and validated in total 31 business case practices, of which the majority was perceived as highly effective.