What you need and how you do it?

Whenever the need to convince someone arises, the need for justification always arises as well. Justification means providing a reason for proposing something new or different. It could be a new approach you want to adopt or when seeking funding for projects that involve considerable need for adaptation to changing requirements.

This is when it becomes imperative for the Product Owner to justify the deployment of a project undertaken based on a scrum-based framework. All stakeholders involved, including clients have to understand that scrum adopts a “Value Driven Delivery” concept unlike traditional projects. Scrum, unlike traditional projects is designed to drive value throughout the project, not only achieve value at the end of the project.

In this regard, for scrum-based projects, business justification occurs on a continuous basis; at the beginning, at established intervals throughout the project lifecycle and whenever a risk or issue presents itself. This justification process takes place prior to the initiation of a project and is consistently validated throughout the lifecycle.

Here at Sharma Management International, we believe that this business justification should entail three steps:

1. Presentation and Evaluation of a Business Case – Usually a project is generally evaluated and approved by the Product Owner in a Scrum friendly company. After approval, the project is documented and presented as a business case. Subsequently, the Product Owner creates a Project Vision Statement and obtains approval from executives and/or the project or program management board.
2. Justification of Continuous Value - After decision makers have approved the Project Vision Statement, it is baselined and delineates the business justification. The business rationalization is continuously validated during the entire project execution stage and at predefined milestones
3. Benefits Realization Confirmation – The Product Owner confirm the realization of customer benefits throughout the project and when the User Stories in the Prioritized Product Backlog have been developed and accepted.

By ensuring that these steps are undertaken without fail, business justification for scrum projects increases confidence levels of the ability for scrum projects to provide value driven delivery.

Business Justification can be learnt at a deeper level by joining our online Scrum Master Certification course on 14 – 15 July 2020. Click here to find out more.

Dr Rumesh Kumar,

PMP, SMC, CST