Why do you need to build the case for change?

Surely just sharing your great idea, or highlighting the obvious issue is enough to convince others to get on board and help?  Perhaps your enthusiasm will convince others to invest time and capital into one project over another?  Or perhaps your role means you can simply tell others to work on a project? 

The Project One team have seen all these approaches used with mixed success in change and transformation programmes over their many years of working with organisations.  However, these approaches are less successful when: 

• Investment committees want to see robust business cases, supported by financial modelling, but they understood that the “numbers aren’t the whole story” 
• There are many investment opportunities but only enough resource to pursue one or two and several people need to decide together 
• Previous projects have faltered or failed mid-way due to a lack of sponsorship, sufficiently skilled or motivated resources, or competing demands for focus. 

Building the case for change, typically by having the right conversations and capturing them in a compelling document which goes further than the traditional numbers-centric business case, is a crucial component of a successful change effort in almost every business and scenario, and at three key points in time for those change efforts. 

#1 At the beginning: six key elements to build your case for change 

Starting anything new, whether that’s a relatively modest project or a major business transformation programme, is like starting a fire.  We need a spark or catalyst, some fuel, and it needs to grow to the point where it’s delivering what you want (heat, light) and is somewhat self-sufficient.   

The great idea or obvious issue or opportunity is the spark and the case for change can ensure sufficient fuel (money, people, time, focus) is secured to get the change underway. 

At the beginning of any business change the case for change should: 

• Clearly set out the business problem or opportunity  
• Describe the “size of the prize” once the work has been finished 
• Provoke the right conversations to occur and summarise their outputs 
• Create a written “single version of the truth” to ensure everyone has the same understanding of the why (the change is needed) and the what (are we going to do) 
• Show how the internal and external context has been considered and that how things work today is clearly understood (we don’t want to tackle the wrong issue or tackle it in the wrong way due to a lack of understanding) 
• And finally, create a clear and highly compelling argument for starting now and allocating the right resources.   

#2 In the middle: how to keep your change programme on track 

For those familiar with how most business change efforts ebb and flow, there often comes a time when stakeholders or the project team think “this is so hard, why did we think this was a good idea?” 

With a clear and compelling case for change, stakeholders and team members can remind themselves of the why and remain focused and sufficiently well-resourced to see the change through to the end – to keep the fire going despite the challenges.  

However, sometimes the internal and / or external context of the business or project changes – either subtly over time or abruptly.  Our case for change (which captured the context and “how things used to work”) can now be used as a baseline against which we can compare the new current situation.  This can help to develop and agree a considered response – perhaps the case for change needs updating, or the scope of work needs to be changed.  Without that original case for change, that baseline, it can be much harder to determine how best to react. 

#3 At the end: track the benefits 

Having pulled through those challenging times, and delivered the scope successfully, the case for change is still helpful. 

Benefits need to be tracked and changes in behaviour maintained and the case for change can remind stakeholders of what it used to be like and focused on previously agreed objectives and indicators. 

They can also be useful to build organisational knowledge over time – by comparing the original case for change against the actual changes delivered and the success achieved (or otherwise), organisations can learn lessons, refine their approach, and improve the quality of the case for change at the start of future change efforts. 

In future articles, we will share insights into how to build a compelling case for change.  Click here to have future articles sent to your inbox or click here to read previous articles on a range of other topics. 

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theteam@projectone.com