Strategic Outline Case

Executive summary

Write a concise and comprehensive overview of the document’s content, key conclusions and principal recommendations.

Purpose

Explain the purpose of the project with a brief description which includes the context around the intervention.

Organisational overview

Provide a brief overview of the organisation, including purpose, structure and key customers.

Business Strategy and Aims

Describe existing and future business plans, including any relevant national initiatives and stakeholders/customers for services.

Alignment to existing policies and strategies

Explain how the project supports the existing policies and strategies of the organisation and how it will assist in achieving the business goals, strategic aims and business plans of the organisation.

Spending objectives

List the key objectives for the proposed spending and rank them in order of importance.

Think about how your objectives:

• improve the quality of public services
• improve the delivery of public services
• reduce the cost of public services
• meet statutory, regulatory or organisational requirements

Existing arrangements (if any)

Provide a clear picture of the organisation’s current service model and existing arrangements. This provides evidence of what the current difficulties are which can then be compared to future improvements.

Business needs

Describe the improvements and changes that are required for the project to meet the spending objectives.

Potential scope and service requirements

Identify the potential scope of the project in terms of the operational capabilities and service changes required to satisfy the identified business needs.

Think about:

• the ‘core’ services the project needs to be successful
• the ‘desirable’ services which might need more budget
• the ‘optional’ services if budget and time allows

Benefits criteria

List the main benefits of the project by stakeholder groups and rank them in order of importance.

For each benefit, explain:

• the type of benefit

• who will get the most value from the benefit
• how the benefit will be measured

Strategic risks

Risk is the possibility of a ‘negative’ event occurring, adversely impacting on the project.

Specify the main risks and how you will counter them for these categories:

• Business risks
• Service risks
• External risks

Constraints and dependencies

Specify any constraints that have been placed on the project.

Constraints include policy decisions, rules and regulations and timescales which the project must follow, but which it has no control over.

Dependencies can be:

• Inter-dependencies (not part of the project, but possibly linked to another project)
• External-dependencies (not part of the project, but part of the wider organisation or even other organisations)

Critical Success Factors (CSFs)

These should be weighted and ranked in order of importance.

Explain how well the option:

• meets the agreed spending objectives
• optimises public value
• matches the ability of potential suppliers to deliver the required services
• can be funded from available sources of finance
• matches the level of available skills required for successful deliver

Long-list of options

Identify 10-12 options for achieving the project’s aims.

Provide a full description of each option, together with an assessment of its Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT analysis) and a conclusion in terms of how well it meets the spending objectives and critical success factors agreed for the project.

Include ‘do nothing’ or ‘do minimum’ options at this stage.

Preferred way forward

Provide a conclusion from the initial assessment.

Short-listed options

You should identify a minimum of four shortlisted options. These should include:

1. Business As Usual (BAU) – the benchmark for Value for Money
2. ‘do minimum’ – a realistic way forward that also acts as a further benchmark for Value for Money, in terms of cost justifying further intervention
3. ‘recommended’ - the preferred way forward at this stage
4. one or more other possible options based on realistic ‘more ambitious’ and ‘less ambitious’ choices that were not discounted at the long-list stage

Care must be taken to avoid ‘rigging’ and ‘retro-fitting’ options that have been pre-determined. The project should seek guidance from its reviewers if it finds itself in this position.

Outline commercial case

Provide a basic assessment of the ability of the market place to provide the required goods and services.

Outline financial case

Provide a basic assessment of how much it will cost to resource the project and to provide support before and after it is completed.

Outline management case

Describe:

• who is involved in the project (both inside and outside of the organisation)
• the achievability of the project, taking into account the organisation’s readiness and resources
• how the project is to be managed
• nature of work needed to develop management proposals.v