Impact

The headline grabbers are as follows:

• Reduces costs
• Reduces risk
• Reduces timescales
• Increases reliability
• Increases flexibility
• Increases quality

I’ll cover the details of identifying and estimating each of these in later posts, here we are concerned with how they are presented in the summary.

Being SMART

Every statement made in your summary must be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Agreed to, Realistic and Time boxed. Meeting these criteria will ensure you have a defensible position. With that said, how you present these SMART statements can be the difference between getting your business case considered and not even making it to the first hurdle.

Presenting SMART the smart way

Although it is tempting to just put something like the following

Costs due to re-releasing applications into operational environments will be reduced 5% in the first year.

This temptation should be avoided. This claim is SMART: it is specific, we know what is to be reduced, when, and by how much; it is measurable, we can measure re-release costs before and after the changes; it is agreed, I’m assuming here that we have agreed with stakeholders that a 5% reduction is at least feasible; it is realistic, again I am assuming such; it is time boxed, we know when the saving it to be achieved. All the SMART boxes have been ticked.

It’s just not very tempting though, is it?

Once again, look at marketing for guidance. Which is more appealing?

Save 5% on your next car purchase

or

£1000 off your new car.

I know which one my gut wants. It wants that £1000! 5 is a small number 1000 is a big number, I want that big number!

Of course, once head gets involved I realise that on a car worth £20,000 these are the same thing, and on cars less that £20,000 I’m better of taking the £1000 and on cars over £20,000 the 5% is actually the better deal. But head is not involved in the initial impact of these statements, gut is.

The point is, large numbers have a greater impact and concrete numbers are easier to imagine that abstract numbers like 5% which could mean anything because we need to know 5% of what. Even if you need to use percentages, give concrete examples too, they have much more immediate impact. You can even present these as hypotheticals, for example.

… savings of 5%… …this would mean savings of £200,000 on a £1,000,000 cost.

If this is challenged, you simply point out that the cost is an illustration, not an actual estimate of savings.

While we are addressing presentation of numbers, consider this; which is the more appealing, £1,000,000 or $1m? Most people scanning a document will notice $1,000,000 while $1m seems small and insignificant. In the headlines presented in your summary, use the £1m form only when doing side-by-side comparison were all the numbers are on the same scale (such as in a table where it is common practice to make a column of numbers represent thousands or millions, just to make the table easier to read). Of course, you might prefer the shortened form when presenting the costs of you project.

Don’t think this matter? Consider the following examples.

For an initial investment of £250k we anticipate first year savings of £1,500,000.

See how that looks? Compare this to the following.

For an initial investment of £250,000 we anticipate first year savings of £1.5m

Notice how the exact same information has a very different initial impact. Remember, most people reading this for the first time will have that same initial impact. The numbers will eventually be scrutinized, but this is about getting past initial impressions and to the point where the business case is taken seriously, so take all the advantage you can get.