How do I make the case for what I want to do?

How Do I Make The Case For What I Want To Do (Change Page Title)

• How do I make the case for hiring staff?

    You should do a skills audit and a skills gap analysis. You should identify the reasons why the vacancy has arisen;
    the operational benefits; the reasons for filling the vacancy now; the business need; impact on other staff; the proposed
    budget or means of supporting the post.

• How do I make the case for procuring preservation services?

    You should do a landscape study of available service offerings; a high level overview of costs associated with different options; 

• How do I make the case for starting a preservation project?

    Some organisations may require a business case prior to applying for project funding. This should include elements from the case
    for implementing preservation more generally (see below) but will require more focus on the timing and staff issues over the
    duration of the project and its impact on core business.

• How do I make the case for implementing preservation as a core activity?

    This should start with reference to the organisational mission and strategy and should examine the value proposition from the
    outset. The case will require an analysis of benefits versus costs and should emphasise the potential return on investment.
    The non-finanical benefits are important which may include, increased productivity, enhanced reputation, improved service 
    delivery, etc. 

• How do I know how much implementation detail to put in my business case?

    You need to propose a set activities that are scoped properly and which clearly address the problem that you 
    have identified.  It could be a short, one off task or a longer series of activities which span multiple collections.
    You need to establish whether this is a 'capital' project - ie one off with a fixed completion point - or a 'revenue' activity
    which will be ongoing and indefinite.  You might illustrate it with a workflow diagram. It helps to provide three components - a 
    risk assessment for the tasks (ie what might go wrong); a quality plan (how will you check that it works); and criteria
    for success (to prove it has worked).

• How much detail about tools and skills should be included?

    Provide enough detail so that the costs can be justified. If you have done a pilot project, you will already know the 
    sorts of tools and skills you need and can refer to that project in the business case. 
    Some things you might need to consider:
    Tools for impact assessment- how will we know if the project has been a success/what it's impact has been?
    Engagement: is there a need to engage certain stakeholders? What tools could we use to do this?
    Measurement: how  do we know if the project is progressing as planned?
    Do we need to develop new tools or are suitable off-the shelf options available?
    What tools will be used to monitor risk? 
    

• How do you gather feedback?

    A decent stakeholder analysis should be the starting point for this. Once you havev identified your stakeholders you can work
    out the best ways to gather feedbakc from them. Depending on the type of project you are making the case for you may be
    able to insert ways to gain feedback from the system you will implement.

• What are the rights issues?

    Here's a useful place to start: http://dx.doi.org/10.7207/twr12-02  - Andrew Charlesworth's technology watch report for 
    the DPC on Intellectual Property Rights and Preservation

• How will it be reused (policy question)?

    It's important to think about how the implementation of you project might impact the policies in place within you institution.
    If your instituion has a policy in place supporting the reuse of data then identify how your project supports this and how
    existing policies may need to reflect new workflows.