How are big projects decided on in your business? If it’s anything like most organisations, big pieces of work are undertaken predicated on a traditional business case. The project’s proposer pitches this (long and detailed) business case to the board, who then decide if they’ve set out a strong enough argument to warrant the go-ahead. It’s what we call a “big project” mindset at Zebra and we feel it’s a flawed system that many organisations are stuck in. Why? Because big projects generally waste time and money, and rarely deliver the outcomes promised in the business case. Instead, we advocate an alternative approach to projects and decision-making that we believe delivers better outcomes for the business.

What’s the problem with business cases?

As we see it, there are three big problems with business cases and the way decision-making on large projects is approached in most organisations.

1. Too big a view

Business cases usually outline huge projects—like overhauling an organisation’s website from the ground up—with a large number of dependencies that run over one or more financial years. They often involve making fundamental, disruptive and expensive changes to the business to achieve the grand vision. Unfortunately, they also usually run over time and over budget while failing to deliver the projected outcomes or expected value. They are simply too big and too ambitious to be realistically achievable.

2. Lack of real value and rigour

On the subject of value, the basic premise of a business case is that decision-makers want to understand what the value of a project might be. So the applicant is required to demonstrate this in detail—particularly for digital projects where data is more readily available. The problem here is that you can’t truthfully answer all of the decision-makers’ questions and address their concerns with data. And that’s because data doesn’t accurately predict the future—nobody can do this. Using data to pretend you know what’s going to happen over the course of a two-year project so you can “mitigate risk” and predict value is a poor way to make decisions. Added to this, decision-makers generally don’t have in-depth knowledge of the subject they are making decisions on. For example, they are unlikely to be technical SEO experts. Therefore, they aren’t well placed to accurately judge whether the projected outcomes of a business case are realistic, or stipulate how these should be measured.

Not measuring or reporting on outcomes and value means the entire business case and big project lifecycle process lacks rigour. Objectives and key results (OKRs) aren’t set or tracked so nobody sees the true extent to which these big projects are failing. And the system is allowed to continue despite being inefficient and harmful for the business.

3. Reputational risk gets in the way

There’s an additional human aspect to big project business cases that can create problems, and that’s the tendency for reputational risk to get in the way. In our experience, the motivation for a big project isn’t always because it’s the best thing for the business. Often—and understandably—these things are proposed because people think it will be interesting or good for their careers. They then make the numbers in the business case fit with the narrative they know they need to get the project approved.

So, what’s a better way of doing things?

Pointing out the problems with something is no use unless you have a solution. In this case, we have several. First, there’s the ideal scenario which is how we think businesses should approach projects in a perfect world as an alternative to the current “big project” business case mindset. And then there are realistic small improvements that any business could make right now to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the way decisions are made.

The ideal scenario: testing and incrementality

We think testing and incrementality is a better approach for most organisations than traditional big project business cases. It’s more beneficial to start with small and easy to reverse actions or changes to test whether an idea could work and build from there—essentially a scientific approach to testing business hypotheses. In an ideal world, before making a big investment we’d advise any organisation to identify small steps with modest risk and cost. These can move you towards your goal in increments, rather than taking a blind moon shot at an overly ambitious big vision. The success (or not) of these small steps can show you if the big goal is feasible and beneficial for the business. And you can change direction at any time because you have not committed to the grand plan. To work well, this involves a level of humility to accept and admit when a hypothesis is wrong.

Realistic small improvements

Acknowledge uncertainty

No of us really knows what’s going to happen in the future. Acknowledging this uncertainty is a good first step to making better business decisions. It takes courage to say “I don’t know”—particularly in a corporate environment—but it has huge benefits in terms of introducing some transparency to the process and recognising limitations.

Try to test small first

Before making a big decision, find a small step you can take to test and validate the big idea. Ideally, this is easily reversible and doesn’t cost much money so if it doesn’t produce good results you haven’t wasted much time, effort or money. If it does produce good results, you have a solid indication that it’s worth proceeding with the big idea.

Accept not everything is measurable

Like embracing uncertainty, moving away from the idea that everything is measurable—and therefore a huge quantity of data is required to justify decisions—is a useful step. Results from the small test identified in the last section are much more useful than huge quantities of past, unrelated data to making decisions.

Do not undervalue speed

If you fail fast you learn fast too, which is why we think it’s important to not undervalue speed and experimentation. If you can run a small, cheap test that fails and tells you an idea isn’t going to work or create value, this is a big benefit. This approach is doubly important when we think about the rapidly evolving tech landscape. Why pour two years into a big project only to launch something that’s already out of date when you could get an MVP (minimal viable product) out into the world quickly and iterate from there?

A fundamental mindset shift to make better decision

We recognise that our “ideal scenario” would involve a fundamental shift in the way most organisations think and operate, which is why we have proposed some realistic small improvements to help you on your way to making better decisions as a business. If these small improvements work, you may be able to build a case to move towards an iterative and experimental approach to decision making. One step at a time, of course.