Who owns the business case and benefits management process?

Ownership of the business case process, templates, and guidelines is the critical factor in a firm's investment decision-making. The IT steering committee, comprised of IT and business execs, should own the business case process and standards. The business via its enterprise project management office (EPMO) — or by default, the IT PMO if there is no EPMO — should manage the process, moving the business case through the steps of its development journey within the firm, all the way through to sign-offs by stakeholders and the steering committee's decisions. Why the PMO? Best practices show that a significant role of the PMO is the standardization of IT-related processes, tools, and methodologies across the business — one of which should be the business case process. And business case creation skills may exist in a PMO center of expertise, with its unique, unbiased, cross-functional view of the firm. What does "owning the business case process" mean? PMOs that step up to the process  ownership role will:
· Create a collaborative environment to develop the standards. Business cases stall when the stakeholders aren't committed to the process and the framework. The reason: Stakeholders won't
participate without the consultation, input, and feedback necessary to generate buy-in and their own sense of ownership.
· Get the sign-offs. A business case can be thought of as a set of predictions — and each business case prediction must have a sponsor. Predictions without commitment have no credibility
with decision-makers. Signing on the dotted line gives a business case teeth and identifies a commitment to review success or failure post-project.
· Use business case best practices. Follow a standardized template with a consistent table of contents. Quality business cases are living documents for the expected life of the investment and
form the basis for extracting full value past project implementation.
· Own the process, not the content. Be clear about that. PMOs should not get sucked into being a misplaced proxy for another business case element owner. Instead, PMOs manage the process
by which project requests are evaluated and initiated.

Source: Forrester Research,