The concept of building your case begins well before you gather all of your information. It is easy to fall into a trap of fitting your case around the information you gathered, however this can lead to many problems such as developing a solution to the wrong problem, not solving the underlying root cause of the problem, or even providing answers to the client that they already know. There are strategies that you can use to gather the right information prior to building your case, which in the end, will become your case.

When doing research on the topic of building a case, I came across some short but powerful tips that HBR has come up with regarding the topic. Here are a few tips that I find helpful:

• Don’t’ settle for the first developed business case; explore alternative solutions
• Get the impacted clients and employees involved
• Ask questions to clarify what the client is asking of you
• Ask “what” and “why” questions to expand on the client’s thought

Remember, all of these activities should occur well before you gather your information and develop a solution for your client. Neglecting any of these activities may cause your project to start over from the beginning or even lose the business from your client. For those who are interested in this topic, there are a few more tips that you can use to help build your case: http://hbr.org/tip/2012/05/10/build-a-better-business-case and http://hbr.org/tip/2013/03/01/use-questions-to-build-your-case.