Website Development Business Case
This is a practical guide to building a business case for a website development project — the justification that weighs the costs, benefits and risks of doing the project, adapted to the realities of designing and building a new website.
What a Business Case is
A business case is the justification that weighs the costs, benefits and risks of doing the project. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Business Case. On a website development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Website Development project
Website Development projects live or die on designing and building a new website. A well-built business case gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how website development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Problem or opportunity
- Options considered
- Costs and benefits
- Financial appraisal (ROI/NPV/IRR)
- Recommendation
Website Development-specific considerations
Tailor the business case to the risks that most often derail website development projects:
- Scope creep from stakeholder requests
- Content readiness delays
- Browser/device compatibility
Example
On a real website development project, the business case would be shaped by designing and building a new website. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — scope creep from stakeholder requests, content readiness delays, browser/device compatibility — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.