The business case (around 500 words) As with all projects, a business case is developed so the sponsor has enough information to make an informed decision whether to spend the time, money and resources on this project. Usually the business case will include; The problem First task is to describe the problem; • What is the problem? • Why is it a problem? • Why is it worth solving (what benefits arise from solving it?) • Who cares? (who benefits or is affected by a solution?). Existing knowledge Because new knowledge is expensive you need to find out what is already known about the problem and potential solutions. No organization can afford to pay for a solution when there is already one available and it is highly unlikely that your problem is so unique that there isn't a lot of information available about the factors that contribute to the problem, methods of investigation and its solution. Got that? Good. Your problem might be to find out something (investigation) or to design something or to develop something from a design or simply to solve the problem because there is enough known about it but it simply needs to be applied. Method Like any project the work needs to be planned. While there may be general methods for investigation, design, development, or problem-solving most organizations will expect you to be more specific than to say simply “We will investigate what industry generally spend on technology refresh” or something similar. No-one would fund such a vague proposal. Instead you must describe what you expect to do, how you will expect to do it, what you will do to contain risks, how long you expect it to take and so on. You must describe your intended method for completing this project so that your sponsor can see that what you propose to do is appropriate to the problem, and will probably produce a usable result.