If my memory serves me correctly — and after 34 years as an information technology (IT) professional, some memories are fuzzier than others are — the business case was “king” and at the height of its power in the late 1970s. First, let's recall that period, the late 70s. (For those of you who were not born until 1980 or later, “Grandpa Matt” has a history lesson for you.)

The mainframe in its glass house dominated the IT space, and IBM dominated the mainframe space. Univac and Control Data Corp. (remember them?) fought over a tiny mainframe-computer market share. Mid-range computers and minicomputers played important roles, especially in our industry, where they served as supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems, remote terminal units (RTUs) in substations and plant monitoring systems in fossil generating units. You can count on one hand the number of non-mainframe manufacturing vendors still in business today. The term “PC” meant, if anything, Peace Corps, certainly not “personal computer” or even “politically correct.”

Off-the-shelf computer applications were practically nonexistent. Other than the computer hardware vendors, there were few companies in the software development business, so most utilities developed their own application software from scratch. Software development required hoards of analysts and programmers, was heavily customized, took years to implement and projects were always behind schedule. Therefore, computer applications were always extremely expensive and painful.

These were not the good ol' days.

The Tribunal

Because of the time and expense involved, executive management were (justifiably) hesitant to authorize any new application systems. That's why the business case was king, although, at the time, it wasn't called “a business case,” more likely a “cost/benefit study” or “Kepner-Tragoe analysis.”

Typically, there was an executive committee that had “thumbs-up, thumbs-down” decision-making responsibility for all proposed computer-related projects. In practice, this committee acted as judge, jury and executioner. Committee membership might consist of the vice presidents of generation, transmission, distribution and finance, plus the highest-ranking member of the IT department, usually someone with the title of manager and who, by the way, was a nonvoting member.

The project sponsor made a formal presentation to this committee, which included a 1.5-inch-thick handout and a one-hour talk, followed by an hour of cross-examination by the executive committee. (If you never experienced one of these exercises, imagine presenting a case before the sitting U.S. Supreme Court.) Remember now, PowerPoint hadn't been invented yet, nor Windows.

These committees were tough. Going before them was such an ordeal that most proposed computer projects were killed at lower levels of management to avoid even trying to get past this committee. The committee would immediately turn down half of all proposals with no appeal allowed for at least one year. A quarter of the presenters were humiliated and sent away to do their homework, before returning for one rehearing. The other quarter might be approved on the first attempt.

So Why are Business Cases Back in Vogue?

I recently attended the DistribuTECH Conference in Miami Beach and the Geospatial & Information Technology Association (G.I.T.A.) Conference in Tampa. This conference is like “old home week” for me. The conference did not disappoint. Looking for trends, I realized that utilities are again building business cases. Here are a few presentation titles:

• “From Business Case to Process Billing: Duke Power's Successful Deployment of AMR Technology,” by J. Carl I. Nichols, Duke Power.

• “Building the Business Case for Substation Automation at MidAmerican Energy,” by Bob Uluski, KEMA Consulting.

• “Making a Business Case for Mobility,” by Mary Ann Stewart, UtiliCorp United.

I like Stewart's modern definition of a business case: “A product packaged for an intended audience, designed to justify expenditures, but also to perform some intangibles like triggering sponsor interest and involvement, getting buy-in.” All the authors emphasized that today's business case is more than a simple cost/benefit analysis.

The modern business case must address, among other factors:

• Business drivers
• Business value to be realized
• Tangible and intangible benefits
• Effect on business processes and people's jobs
• Financials
• The technology to be used
• Compatibility with existing technology
• Training
• Risks.

We are back in the business of building business cases for several reasons:

• The core business applications are already in place, outdated or not. Newer proposals should bring in applications that profoundly affect existing business processes.

• The benefits of the new applications are not understood, or there is a perception that “we're operating just fine without this new technology.”

• Technology is still very expensive, although the bang-for-the-buck is orders of magnitude greater than in 1979.

• Deregulation or re-regulation has brought renewed executive concerns of spending wisely.

• The scope of new automation projects is usually very large, involving several integrated application systems.

• Potential for mergers and acquisitions, with resulting conflicts between the applications used by the two companies to support similar business processes.

Is this resurgence of business cases a good thing or a bad thing? Overall, I'd have to say it's a good thing, as long as there's a reasonable set of hoops to jump through to develop your case and get it approved. If your project really will provide the business value that warrants spending the amount of the company's resources you're going after, it won't be that hard to prepare your case.

As for that executive committee, I'd push it down a level. Generation, transmission and distribution are different business units and should each have its own committee. The head of IT (or CIO) is an internal business partner and should be a voting member on each committee. In practice, each committee should act as a jury of peers. We don't need that mindset of executioner that pervaded 1979!