Steak or Sizzle: What sells in your organization?
January 2002
I love a good PowerPoint presentation. It’s great to be entertained with graphics and sound bytes. But it’s dangerous for any of us to confuse the sizzle of a business proposal with the “steak” of true content.
When it comes to evaluating business proposals, most of my executive clients make their determinations based on a combination of due diligence, business instinct, and gut feeling --- but never SOLELY on the lure of the graphics or the resonance of a sound byte on a PowerPoint slide.
Yet having advised hundreds of individuals on how to present their ideas to senior management, I an attest to widespread confusion about what comprises a compelling business case. And in the absence of set guidelines, people often work too hard on the “look” of their presentation and not hard enough on the substance of the argument, the metrics, the competitive analysis, or the quality of forecasting that can persuade their leadership of the viability of their recommendations. And when their proposals are rejected, they are often demoralized and conclude that senior management doesn’t ‘get it,’ is too risk adverse or too politically oriented in their funding allocation.
This confusion can be quickly remedied if executives are able to communicate their needs and expectations to their managers. It is up to executives to end the guesswork by spelling out exactly what they want and need to know in order to support specific business strategies.
Of course that assumes that you know what you are looking for.
We rarely spend our workdays studying simple problems that have sure-fire solutions. Rather we face complex issues in a fast paced marketplace and have to evaluate when to take what risks to further the organizational mission. The business case is designed to help make those calculations more clear.
The Business Case
By definition, a business case is a detailed, point by point analysis that serves as a decision support document for a point of view (the 'case'). The business case:
• Can and should be referenced/refined over time.
• Includes the good news and the bad news, the pros and the cons.
• Involves lots of gathering and analyzing of data.
