The third blog in our Business Case series focuses on the critical theme of leadership.
Though obvious, the first thing to accept (and build into your team’s capacity) when creating a Business Case is a change management programme. Successfully delivering a significant service transformation requires strong leadership and stakeholder engagement at every level, across all key organisations, disciplines, and departments.
Remember: your project is NOT an estates project, so don’t just fund the construction and expect the service transformation to happen by magic!
So, before you start:
Have you, identified leaders who are committed, determined and have the right skills and experience to drive the project all the way from initiation through to delivery?
Do those leaders understand their role in providing leadership for the project? What you are expecting from them and why are they so important?
Have the identified individuals been given the time and resources to deliver the role? There are a diverse range of leadership roles within a project, as set out in in the image below:
✏️ Top Tip: Senior leadership buy-in and long-term support is critical! We recommend that you only move forward with a Business Case if you have, as a minimum, a suitably experienced Senior Responsible Officer, a Project Director, an Executive Project Champion and a Project Manager. Without these, are you setting yourself up to fail?
Some leadership roles are specific to certain organisations, departments, professions or disciplines and require the leader to provide clarity and articulate the requirements of a certain group of policies or best practice (i.e. subject matter expert). Project Leaders also need to be the conduit (translator), from the project to the stakeholder group, proactively and consistently explaining, promoting, communicating, influencing, testing and resolving issues.
Other leadership roles are more senior and require all the above inputs, plus strategic insight, experience and horizon scanning, to ensure the necessary resources are provided to deliver the project successfully, as well as managing the project risks and steering the project through national and local, political negotiations.
The project will also require long term leadership. In our experience, a Business Case process takes on average three to eight years to deliver and it’s vital to maintain consistent leaders who can remember and advocate for the original rationale, vision and benefits of the business case (being the owners of the “golden thread”).
✏️ Top Tip: Avoid Wasted Time, Effort and Money! Only start on the Business Case journey if you have the drive, determination, capacity, capability, and leadership to see the project through to full business case approval, as stopping and starting will be an inefficient use of time and valuable public funds.
⭐Success Story: Unlocking the transformation of Hythe and Dibden War Memorial Hospital
The redevelopment of the Hythe and Dibden War Memorial Hospital was recognised nationally as one of NHS Property Services legacy projects and was a priority project for the local Southwest Hampshire Delivery System. When we started working on the Business Case, we had to quickly engage local leaders and understand the project history, local politics and manage multiple stakeholders to successfully deliver the project to challenging timeframes.
The West Hampshire Commissioning Board commended gbpartnerships on the quality of the Business Case and were delighted that this legacy scheme (12 years in the planning) finally reached the construction stage. Bina Featherstone, NHS Property Services, Head of Evaluation and Analytics commented: “gbp were very knowledgeable about the Business Case and really helped drive to complete it on time. My team at NHSPS and gbp worked very well together.”
Need help now?
Arrange a conversation with our expert Business Case Team. Contact Ian Sabini, Managing Consultant on: ian@gbpconsult.co.uk
Coming up next in our series of Business Case Club Blogs:
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