Business Cases
Expressing an architecture proposal in the currency that gets funded.
4 to work through
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intermediate Multiple choice
A capability is expected to add about £90k a month in gross margin once live. The team can ship it in five months, or in three months by adding two contractors at £25k a month each. Which number decides it?
3 min answer -
intermediate
A lift-and-shift business case moves a two-socket database server with 32 Intel Xeon cores running Oracle Database Enterprise Edition onto a 64-vCPU instance in an authorised cloud environment. Compute, storage and egress are modelled carefully and the case shows a small saving. Which line is missing, and how big is it?
3 min answer -
advanced
An architect must justify a two-year modernisation programme with no new customer-facing features. What makes such a business case credible?
2 min answer -
advanced
Write the business case for replacing a component that works but is expensive to change.
2 min answer
4 terms in this topic
Business Case Structure
The argument format that gets technical investment funded — problem, options, quantified benefit, cost, risk and a recommendation.
practiceBusiness Cases
The argument that an investment is worth making — where architects supply the cost, risk and option value rather than the enthusiasm.
conceptCash-Releasing Benefit
A benefit that reduces a named budget line on a known date, as distinct from released capacity or avoided cost - which are real but do not become mon…
practiceCost of Inaction
The quantified ongoing cost of leaving a system as it is - the number that lets architectural work compete against feature work for funding.
Neighbouring topics
Business Architecture
General material on the business side of architecture.
Business Capabilities
What a business does, stated stably and independent of implementation.
Capability Mapping
Overlaying systems onto capabilities to expose duplication and gaps.
Business Processes
How work actually flows, including the handoffs nobody documented.
Value Streams
End-to-end delivery of an outcome, and where the waiting happens.
Domain Boundaries
Where the language of the business changes, and services should too.
Stakeholder Analysis
Who is affected, what they need, and who can block you late.
Product Thinking
Treating platforms and services as products with users and a lifecycle.
Business KPIs
The numbers a design is ultimately judged against.
Regulatory Constraints
Non-negotiable requirements that remove design options entirely.
Organisational Constraints
Team structure, skills and budget cycles as architectural inputs.
Time to Market
The constraint that dominates most products, and how to trade against it.
Build vs Buy
Differentiation versus table stakes, priced over five years.
Operating Models
How delivery, platform and governance functions fit together.
Team Topologies
Stream-aligned, platform, enabling and complicated-subsystem teams.
Platform as a Product
Adoption earned rather than mandated, with an owner and a roadmap.
Outcome Measurement
Knowing whether the thing you built achieved what it promised.
Portfolio Prioritisation
Choosing between investments with incomparable benefits.
Business Continuity
What the business does while the system is unavailable.