Guest post by David Stephen, Lead Author, NZ Better Business Cases Templates & Guidance
Chances are that if you’ve been involved in a business case in New Zealand over the last 15 years, you will have come across the Better Business Case (BBC) framework.
At its heart is an international best-practice approach that gives a common structure and language for thinking about whether a public investment makes strategic sense, provides public value, is commercially viable, is affordable and can realistically be delivered (i.e. the Five-Case Model).
Yet even with that robust structure, business cases have often missed the mark. Many business cases became long-winded, subjective attempts at creating a persuasive narrative. Reviewers are left scratching their heads about how the options were assembled, and decision-makers are often overwhelmed with information but given no clear sense of how conclusions were reached or what will happen next.
That is the context for Treasury’s recent refresh of the BBC templates, guidance and checklists.
The Five Case Model remains the foundation. But the refreshed templates make the internal logic of a business case much more visible. You should be able to see the line between the problem being fixed, the options being considered and the decision being sought.
What is the problem you are trying to solve?
The single biggest shift in the new BBC templates, guidance and checklists is a move toward clearer, traceable logic that originates from a set of weighted problem statements.
The most important question to ask is still: what is the problem we’re trying to solve?
That question is not new. But what has changed is how explicitly that answer now needs to be used. ‘The Problem’, along with its causes and effects, is no longer just part of the narrative. It now needs to provide a clear, logical and traceable connection to the options, benefits and recommendations that follow.
Think of a business case now as more like solving a Sudoku. Rather than focusing on beautifully crafted prose, business cases are centred on connecting the logic between weighted problem statements and everything that follows. Like solving a puzzle, the answer to each step in a business case is guided by the logical connection to these problems, including their causes and effects. This provides clarity and traceability, making business cases more objective and defensible.
For example, a problem statement for new investment in public services may have a clear cause, such as insufficient frontline staffing and a clear effect, such as long wait times. On one side, the business case logically builds its options around addressing whatever is causing that problem. That might include recruitment, rostering, outsourcing or other service changes. On the other side, the business case traces who benefits from addressing the effect. In this example, that might mean reduced wait times for service users.
Each option, including a baseline and the new mandatory do-minimum option, is then assessed against the extent to which it delivers measurable benefits.
So, a business case is no longer just a persuasive narrative arranged under five familiar headings. It now needs to be readable as a chain of reasoning.
That is a very different task from simply producing a document.
A clearer method, not just a clearer template
This more structured approach also changes how we should think about business case development itself.
Business case development can now be thought about as a method. Not in the sense of forcing a predetermined answer through a delivery plan, but in the sense of treating the work as a structured sequence of tasks, decisions, inputs, reviews and approvals.
In practice, this means business case developers should begin by confirming a business case scoping document, sometimes called a ‘point-of-entry’ document. This is where the Senior Responsible Owner (SRO) confirms the decision being sought, the business case pathway, the expected depth of analysis across the five cases and the review, assurance and approval route.
From there, the method should progressively settle the core logic: the problem, the options and the decision being sought.
How following a method creates efficiencies
Treating business case development as a method is not just about making business cases tidier. It is about making public investment decisions better and faster.
If the decision pathway is confirmed early, the work can be planned. If the SRO-approved problem statements are settled early, the analysis has an anchor. If options and benefits can be traced back to the problem, reviewers have something specific to test, and decision makers have a clearer basis for approval.
That reduces rework, drift and ambiguity. It also makes it easier for teams to move quickly from early problem definition to a testable first draft. Not by skipping the hard thinking, but by putting it in the right order.
That also creates better conditions for using AI. AI will not fix weak investment logic. It may simply make weak logic sound more polished. But where the method is clear and the logic is visible, AI-enabled tools can help writers and reviewers develop and test the business case faster. AI can help them ask whether the options respond to the problem, whether the benefits are credible, whether the recommendation follows from the evidence, and whether the decision being sought is clear.
That is the real opportunity. Not faster production of longer documents, but faster development of clearer, more defensible investment decisions.
The new templates are a step toward that. They do not remove judgment, make hard decisions easy, or tell decision makers what to value. But they do give us a clearer method. So the practical message is simple. Do not treat the new templates as documents to populate. Treat them as a method to follow.
The final answer should not be known at the start. But the process should be.
Business Case Sprint
For agencies wanting to move quickly from early thinking to a testable business case, Creative HQ has partnered with David Stephen to develop a Business Case Sprint. These provide a structured, facilitated process, aligned with the new BBC guidance, helping agencies understand the problems they are trying to solve, develop the core logic and prepare a first draft that can be tested with executives or decision-making groups.
For information on this, please get in touch.
About the author
David Stephen is a business case and investment management specialist with experience across portfolio, programme and project management in the New Zealand public sector. He has authored and reviewed numerous business cases across a range of sectors and is the lead author of the March 2026 Treasury business case templates and guidance.
Written by David Stephen
Lead Author, NZ Better Business Cases Templates & Guidance
