Win Business Case Approval Faster — AI & Human Expertise

Struggling to push your business case approval across the line before the board or executive team meeting?

You’re not alone. Boards and CFOs are demanding tighter analysis, more precise risk control, and shorter turnaround times than ever.

The good news: when you blend AI-powered business-case tools with seasoned human (Business Case Lead) expertise, you can slash drafting cycles and raise executive confidence in a single stroke.

In this article, Craig Peacock—Director at Chase Consulting and creator of the My Business Case Hub® AI tools and the proven Five-Step Business Case Framework™—shows you exactly how to combine AI business case generation with real-world judgement and business case modelling to deliver approval-ready cases in weeks, not months.

Read on to learn the pitfalls that stall projects, the five critical questions every board expects answered, and the hybrid workflow that will help you win business-case approval faster than ever before.

Why Most Business Cases Stall at the Approval Gate

Boards and CFOs reject more proposals than they approve. Gartner finds that barely 53% of business cases for new enterprise-application projects win funding on the first pass—a coin toss at best.

Three patterns sabotage the non-approved business cases:

Even when a business case is approved, failure looms: only 74% of completed projects deliver the business goals set out in their business cases (PMI Pulse of the Profession 2024), and 70% of large-scale change programs still miss their targets once execution begins (McKinsey research).

The message is clear: to win approval faster—and keep it—your business case must nail the strategic fit, present bullet-proof numbers, and prove you can manage risk and delivery.

The My Business Case Hub's AI tools plus the Business Case Lead's expertise and approach needs to address each of those failure points directly.

The New Advantage — Combining AI Speed with Business Case Lead Insight

Generative AI can draft, model, and summarise at a pace no analyst can match—McKinsey estimates it could automate 60‑70 % of the tasks knowledge workers perform today and unlock up to US$2.6‑4.4 trillion in annual value. For business-case leads, utilizing the My Business Case Hub’s AI tools translates into instant business case documents, NPV models, risk registers, and executive-ready slide decks.

However, raw speed is useless if the assumptions are incorrect or the story fails to align with the board’s agenda. That’s where Business Case Lead’s expertise earns its keep. An experienced Business case Lead validates the data sources, identifies potential political landmines, and crafts a narrative that resonates with boards, CFOs and finance committees.

Inside My Business Case Hub®, the workflow is deliberately hybrid:

• AI builds the first cut—documents, slide decks, financial projections, sensitivity charts, and strategic logic maps—in minutes.

• The Business Case Lead interrogates the outputs, stress-tests drivers, and layers in contextual insights (regulatory shifts, cultural factors, stakeholder dynamics).

• Together, they iterate until the case answers every “so what?” and “what if?” the board will throw at it.

The result is a business case that lands on the board’s agenda faster and survives scrutiny, proving that the real competitive edge comes from combining AI’s processing power with seasoned Business judgment.

Overview of the Five-Step Business Case Framework™

The Five-Step Business Case Framework™ is Chase Consulting’s proven roadmap for turning raw ideas into approval-ready business cases. Each step answers the single question the board will ask at that point in the journey, ensuring nothing derails your presentation on decision day.

1. Clarify the Strategic Need – Articulate the problem or opportunity and clearly outline the cost of doing nothing, so executives and the board understand why action is urgent.

2. Identify and Shortlist Options – Screen every credible pathway (including a “do-nothing” baseline) and narrow it down to the two or three options that truly move the needle.

3. Analyse Value, Costs, and Risks – Develop the business case model and utilize the financials to quantify NPV, IRR, and downside scenarios, then layer in Business Case Lead-validated risk mitigations.

4. Design the Implementation Plan – Map the workstreams, resources, timeline and governance structure that prove you can deliver on the promise.

5. Package for Board Approval – Assemble an executive summary, dashboard visuals and a clear funding recommendation that makes “yes” the most straightforward answer in the room.

Master these five questions and you’ll consistently win business-case approval faster, with or without a budget-cycle scramble.

Step 1 – Clarify the Strategic Need

Before you touch a spreadsheet, you must answer one board-level question: “Why must we act now?”


What the AI Tools Deliver

Inside My Business Case Hub®, the My Project Plan tool ingests your strategic plan, the strategic opportunity, and the latest KPI data, then automatically builds a business-case development roadmap—every task, owner, timeline, and success factor is already laid out.

In the same generation, it drafts:

• A punchy burning-platform narrative that quantifies the opportunity and the cost of inaction.

• A documented problem/opportunity statement that pinpoints the issue and stakes.

• A one-page strategic alignment map linking the business case to the executive scorecard and strategic objectives.

• High-level goals and value targets that the board can track and monitor.

• The action plan includes owners, deadlines, and success metrics.

How the Business Case Lead's Expertise Locks in Approval

1. Stress-test the Draft Logic – A coach or facilitator interviews key stakeholders, validates root-cause data, and refines the language to align with executive vocabulary.

2. Craft a “Strategic Logic Statement” – This enhanced problem-opportunity statement weaves the burning-platform narrative, strategic fit, and early value targets into a single, shareable one-page statement.

3. Secure Early Sign-Off – The sponsor circulates the Strategic Logic Statement to the CFO, Strategy Office, and Risk Lead for a quick review and approval. Early endorsement raises the case’s approval probability and prevents last-minute derailers.

4. Confirm Success Metrics – The Business Case Lead's judgment finalizes the leading and lagging indicators that the board will hold the team accountable for once funding is released.

With this clarity and the strategic need for approval established upfront, every subsequent step in the Five Steps Business Case Framework remains anchored to the outcome that matters most to your board and leadership team, and approval momentum begins immediately.

Step 2 – Identify & Shortlist Options

Boards shut down fast when they feel railroaded into a single path. That’s why the second step is all about showing you have explored all options and alternatives and applied an open, defensible screening criterion.


What the AI Tools Deliver

• My Project Plan analyses your strategic plan, the opportunity, and recent KPI data, along with a range of implementation best practices, to generate a comprehensive list of options—build, buy, partner, joint venture, incremental pilot, and more.

• In the same generation, it produces a shortlisting scorecard (cost, benefit, feasibility, risk, time-to-value, ESG fit) with default weightings tuned to your sector.

How the Business Case Lead's Expertise Locks in Approval

1. Calibrate the criteria – fine-tune weights and consider adding “political feasibility” or cultural factors that the AI can’t see. This demonstrates that the screening criteria reflect your organization’s risk appetite and constraints.

2. Sense-check the long list – remove fantasy options, merge duplicates, and add any niche pathways the AI may have missed. This prevents “gotcha” questions about unrealistic or overlooked choices.

3. Facilitate an option-scoring workshop – involve Finance, Ops, IT and Risk to score each option openly. This fosters visible due diligence and shared ownership, thereby boosting confidence in the outcome.

4. Document the rationale for rejected options and obtain sign-off on the shortlist. This provides an audit trail that shows the board every avenue was considered before recommending a winner.

The outcome from Step 2 is a transparent, stakeholder-endorsed short list—typically two or three contenders, plus the mandatory “do-nothing” baseline—that sets up a fair, head-to-head comparison in Step 3 and dramatically reduces the “Have you really looked at …?” objections that derail approvals.

Step 3 – Analyse Value, Costs & Risks

The key question of the board and executive team is: Which option delivers the best value for money?

This step is where many business cases fail, as they often fail to link the modelling and financial analysis to the strategic plan and risk mitigation.

What the AI Tools Deliver

My Project Plan

• My Project Plan recommends the modelling approach (cost-benefit vs. cost-effectiveness), suggests a discount rate range, and lists independent data sources.

• Built-in “assumption stress-tests” that flag any driver lacking evidence or benchmarks.           

The My Project Plan AI tool provides the business case lead with a validated starting point and a checklist for building the model, ensuring that every number is tested before presenting it to the CFO.


My Financials

• First-draft 7-year cash-flow, NPV, IRR and payback for each shortlisted option.

• Funding scenarios (outright capex, operating lease, staged roll-out) with AI commentary on affordability and balance-sheet impact.

• Sensitivity analysis insights that reveal break-even points.      

The My Financials AI tool enables you to see, in minutes, which option creates the highest risk-adjusted value and how different funding routes impact ROI.


My Risk Analysis

• Heat-mapped risk register with mitigations costed and linked to the financial model.

• NPV-at-Risk metric that converts threats into dollars.

The My Risk Analysis AI tool turns abstract risks into a comprehensive risk plan that decision-makers can weigh against upside.


How the Business Case Lead's Expertise Locks in Approval

1. Validate the Assumptions – benchmark AI inputs against supplier quotes, industry indices and internal cost curves.

2. Facilitate a CFO “Challenge” Session – Agree on a discount rate, contingency, and funding path so that Finance owns the numbers.

3. Layer in Qualitative Risk – add regulatory, cultural and brand risks that the AI can’t quantify and assign an accountable owner.

4. Translate to Executive Narrative – convert tables into a storyline that contrasts upside, downside and break-even in the board’s preferred metrics (EPS, cash yield, cost-to-serve).

The outcome from Step 3 is a fully traceable, risk-adjusted business-case financial model—complete with a cost-benefit analysis, NPV/IRR, funding recommendation, mitigated risk register, and sensitivity tests—that provides the board with unmistakable evidence that your preferred option delivers the best value for money.

Step 4 – Design the Implementation Plan

The key question for the board and executive team is: Can we deliver it and achieve the long-term outcomes and benefits that we aim for?


What the AI Tools Deliver

My Business Case Generator:

• Implementation strategy and detailed workstreams for the recommended option.

• Phased roadmap with key milestones and critical-path flags.

• Resources that highlight capacity gaps early.

• Stage-gate and assurance checkpoints are mapped to your PMO’s methodology. Shows that schedule, resourcing, and governance are already in place, not just on a wish list.

• AI-drafted change-management and socialization plans, linked to the risk register mitigations.

• Benefit-realization tracker aligned to Step 3’s financial model. This connects the “how” directly to the chosen option and embeds the risk controls that the board is approving.

These outputs are available within six minutes, providing a comprehensive implementation blueprint before the first planning meeting is even scheduled.


How the Business Case Lead's Expertise Locks in Approval

1. Validate capacity & commitments with functional leads and vendor partners. This confirms the resource plan is realistic and prevents mid-project staffing shocks.

2. Stress-test dependencies against other in-flight programs and regulatory windows. This reduces the risk of schedule clashes and demonstrates holistic portfolio thinking.

3. Right-size governance—tailor stage-gates, assurance reviews, and RACI to internal PMO standards. This reassures the board that the oversight aligns with the project's complexity.

4. Refine the change-management narrative to reflect culture, unions, and customer-facing impacts. This boosts adoption confidence, a frequent concern for CFOs regarding intangible benefits.

The outcome from Step 4 is a board-ready implementation strategy with a workstream roadmap, including a timeline, resourcing, governance, and a change-management plan, that converts strategic and financial outcomes into an achievable delivery plan.

By combining AI speed with expert scrutiny, you eliminate the biggest approval killer: doubt that the implementation team can actually deliver, and de-risk schedule and cost overrun fears.

Step 5 – Package for Board Approval

The key question for the board and executive team is: Are we convinced and ready to make an investment?


What the AI Tools Deliver — in Minutes

My Business Case Generator

• Professionally formatted Word/PDF business-case document (exec summary, option table, financial & risk dashboards, decision-authorization page). This provides directors with a single, self-contained package they can mark up, archive, and audit.

My Slide Decks             

• 10-to-12-slide narrative that mirrors the document: strategic rationale → option comparison → value-at-stake → mitigated risks → crystal-clear ask.     This saves hours of deck-building and guarantees every slide ties back to the approved numbers.

How Business Case Lead's Expertise Locks in the “Yes”

1. Tone & Story Polish – Shape the opener and close so they align with your CEO’s language and the board’s decision-making style.

2. Design & Brand Compliance – Drop the AI-drafted deck into PowerPoint, apply your corporate template, and fine-tune the layout for maximum scanability.

3. Decision-Authorization Page – Customize the final slide or page with the exact funding request, delegations, and next-gate conditions your governance charter requires.

4. Dry-Run Defence – Conduct a 15-minute “rapid-fire” rehearsal to prep answers for likely CFO or risk-committee questions.

Final Deliverables for the Board and Exective

• Executive Summary – Two pages, written for skimmers.

• Financial & Risk Appendices – One-glance dashboards detailing NPV, IRR, payback, NPV-at-Risk, and mitigations in progress.

• Recommendation & Decision Slide – Funding amount, timeframe, KPIs, and signatures block.

The finished pack can be read in five minutes, defended in fifteen, and filed for audit with a complete assumption trace. That’s how AI speed, coupled with seasoned judgement, converts rigorous analysis into a boardroom-ready story—and turns your proposal into an irresistible “Approved Business Case.”

Client Story — $25 Million Revenue Opportunity Approved in 4 Weeks

A national network of independent agencies needed to prove the ROI of a new cross-sell financial services platform.

By combining My Business Case Hub® with the Business Case Lead’s expertise, the business case moved from concept to board-approved pilot in record time.

*Industry averages among comparable financial-services projects.

How We Did It

1. Day 1: Business Case Lead generated the My Project Plan to map every modelling and stakeholder action.

2. Days 1-4: Four 90-minute coaching sessions with Craig Peacock and used the My Business Case Generator to produce two progressively sharper drafts.

3. Day 5: CEO and Marketing give the green light to the final draft.

4. Day 7: Presentation to National Agency Network CEO and CFO.

5. Week 4: The National Agency Network Board approved the business case for pilot implementation.

Result: An approval timeline cut by 70 % and a fully resourced pilot ready to launch—proof that AI acceleration plus expert business case lead capabilities turn strategic intent into board and executive “yes” faster than the old way ever could.

Common Objections to AI‑Assisted Business Cases (and How We Address Them)

Ready to Win Faster? Book a 1‑to‑1 Coaching Session with Craig Peacock.

A personalized session delivers:

• Live review of your current draft or concept note.

• Instant AI walkthrough—see your own numbers flow into NPV, IRR, risk heat‑maps.

• Action plan of next‑step tasks to hit your board date.

Bonus: Register this month and receive a complimentary 7-day Platinum trial of My Business Case Hub®.

➡ Schedule Your Coaching Call — slots fill quickly, so lock in yours today.

Don’t let stalled business cases cost you funding

Additional Resources

• Corporate Business Case Masterclass – team‑wide, instructor‑led program with micro-credential.

• Business Case Coaching– flexible packages for individuals and project teams.

• AI Tools Overview – deep dive into My Business Cases, My Financial Analysis, My Risk Analysis and more.

• Business Case Insights Library– tactics, templates and success stories updated monthly.

Final Thoughts

Speed alone won’t win the day; neither will polished storytelling without solid financials. By combining AI acceleration from the My Business Case Hub’s AI tools with the Business Case Lead expertise inside the 5‑STEPS™ Framework, you present a business case that boards and executives can approve with confidence—and you do it weeks faster than the old way.

The next move is yours: take the shortcut to “Yes” and book your coaching session with Craig Peacock (PhD) today.

References

Project Management Institute (PMI). (2024). Pulse of the Profession® 2024: The Future of Project Work—Moving Past Office-Centric Models (15th ed.). Newtown Square, PA: Project Management Institute, p. 4.

Bucy, Michael; Finlayson, Adrian; Kelly, Greg; and Moye, Chris. “The ‘How’ of Transformation.” McKinsey & Company, 9 May 2016.

McKinsey Global Institute (MGI). (2023). The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier. 14 June 2023.