Presenting Business Case

using Pyramid Principle

(Invented by Barbara Minto)

By: Atul Marathe

 CSQ - A approach
• Client background
• Engagement Relevant
Situation information we have

• Why they feel a need to

Compelling outsource now?
• What are they looking for now?
Reason

• What questions should we

answer to address client needs?
Questions • Are our questions MECE
 The A part - Pyramid Template

Recommendation

Conclusions
(Subjective)

Supporting Facts
The Pyramid Principle consists of three parts:

What – Why – How

• What: Theory, hypothesis, recommendation
• Why: The reasons, or conclusion
•How: Supporting data, Elaborate on how you want to implement it
Two Kinds of Pyramids
 Q & A vary as per Approver
• Approver has good knowledge of technology to be
used for the project and (almost) made a decision,
looking for people with right skills
• Approver is technically savvy but does not have a
clear choice across technology alternatives, expects
Champion to help decide and implement them
• Approver has clear business requirements with
known pain points with an existing application,
wants Champion to help port it to other platform as a
project – may / may not be technology savvy
• Approver has some business ideas and wants
Champion to implement them internally as a pilot or
appoint a consultant and/or vendor to do so
• Approver has training needs for specific technologies
or concepts that Champion is expected to outsource
 VFD Example - Situation

• Vitthal Flower Decorators (VFD) are in the interior decoration

business for offices. Vitthal Plantscaping (VP) handles the
installation and maintenance of plants in offices
• Their basic business is to decorate areas in office using a variety
of plants of various sizes (height) and maintaining them, usually
by rotation basis
Situatio • They recently expanded into seasonal plants decoration that
offer a wider variety of flower / leaves colors by season
n • They have agreed contracts with clients detailing the
arrangement for a time duration. Currently, they do this
manually using excel sheets.
• They source plants from nurseries in bulk with weekly delivery
plans. Most of their clients are around Pandharpur area
VFD Example - Situation
 VFD – Compelling reasons

• They have limited IT capabilities and would like to spend least time
managing their IT systems. They use an excel based application
locally hosted on their server
• Their KPI is on acquiring more clients by offering innovative
decoration arrangements, managing demand and supply efficiently
• Challenge is in getting a simple elegant software that will help them
Compellin fulfill multiple seasonal orders that require frequent replacements
• They are looking for a simple and elegant web base solution that can
g be easily maintained with limited staff that is well not trained in IT
• Ekadashi season planning starts in early April and they are too busy
Reasons with orders till July end
• They cannot afford to keep more seasonal plants in inventory as they
are perishable and would mean losses if not moved quickly to client
offices, for maximum duration of their life
 VFD - Questions

• Questions to understand their flow of orders and materials and

accounting payment collections
• Questions related to complexity of orders in terms of variety,
replacement cycles and penalties if any, for defaults in providing service
• Questions related to flow of material, lead times required and storage
challenges, if any
• Any specific challenges related to on field staff – connectivity, training,
Question devices used etc
• Need for any competitive advantage at this stage – routing algorithms,
s execution reporting in real time, alternate planning for supplies /
arrangements, profitability analysis etc
• Any preferred technology – SaaS option, hosting option or remote
support for day to day execution of decisions
• Level of collaboration for software development, expertise available,
review frequency
 Revisiting the A part – what guidelines do we
have in each case ?

Recommendation

Conclusions
(Subjective)

Supporting Facts
 VFD Example –Supporting Facts
• Work flow of Client orders their contents
• Work flow of materials, how we track them
during order execution – both vendor and client
side
• What master information is to be stored
• Pricing and invoicing logic for orders
• List of formats for all orders, reports and
queries, details to be obtained later in
development stage
 VFD Example – Conclusions
• List of features to be provided to client
• What we would keep for future enhancements
• Client order, Vendor order, Item Master, work
orders and related data structures required
• Logic for execution of order flow with related UI
• Logic for order fulfillment flow with related UI
• Technology platform to be used (our preference)
with alternatives in case client wants to choose
• Team size and estimation of efforts to arrive at
few milestones and budget
 VFD Example - Proposal
• Overall scope of the application, with future
enhancements out of scope for now including
work flows in the application with user
interactions
• Benefits for client - time saving, accuracy and
control, real time tracking , user friendly etc
• Inventory analysis covered in reports / queries
• Technology choices with alternatives
• Expected duration of development, budget
• Expectations from client during dev stage
• On going support later including operation help
offer if any
 Home Work !
 Read on ‘Pyramid Principle’ by Barbara Minto
 (this was stated in 1961)

 Relate it to the SCQA model we saw earlier

 (in fact it’s the same)
Hope you are on top
of the pyramid !