Develop a structure for the business case toolkit and preservation support pages

Brain storm for the development of the business case for preservation

Neil Grindley reporting back his breakout group: Useful to think about a simple interrogatory approach ... When, Why, What, How, Who

when to include: long term vision/approach short term componenets - staff, storage, etc

who to include: community/stakeholders - type of organisation - business objectives, documentation,scale & maturity

what to include: - characterisation - case studies content sudit etc

why to include: - benefits - risks threats

how

costs audience/language granularity over time

Maureen Pennock reporting back: Define what we thought should go in a business case then work back to what we might need to help people right. this breaks down into a series of tasks:

• Exec Summary
• Strategic vision (where do we want to be)
• Understand the collection
• Understand the context / landscape
• Fit to organizational mission
• What are the risks facing the collection / institution
• Prioritisation of risks
• List of benefits - Value, ROI
• Costs of action and inaction
• Resources needed, institutional readiness (Skills / resourcs / stakeholders)
• Practical recommendations over a short period (and risks associated with them)

Discussion These are noticeably different approaches but they reinforce each other. The when/who/what/how questions are 'real english' and they work well to provide questions that are useful and also immediately understandable. But it won't steer you through a large wad of stuff. The headings are more 'cookie-cutter' giving the outline of everything that would be needed. These two approaches are not mutually incompatible.