Winter 2025

Go from feeling overwhelmed by business decisions to confidently presenting data-backed investment cases

Jenny Wanger

Business Case Bootcamp: Craft, Model, and Pitch Winning Product Ideas

The Linux Foundation

SpotHero

Arity

Allstate Insurance Company

Building a compelling business case is hard. And in this economic environment, we’re being asked to drive more business value with every decision we make. The way to do this is by confidently making the case that your idea deserves to be funded. A strong business case turns you into an influential voice in your company. Yet when asked about business cases, here’s what I’m hearing: ➡️ "My manager wants a business case but I don't know where to start."➡️ "I’m not really a numbers person – how can I justify my product investments?"➡️ "Executives talk about ‘P&amp;L’ impact, but what does that really mean?" Creating the initial business case shouldn’t be scary. Get the confidence to build one via this interactive, two-day case study. Course highlights include:✨ Hands-on practice✨ Tangible takeaways✨ Interactive format On the first day, you will have a chance to interview a business owner, their customer, and their employee in order to explore the pros and cons of different business models (they’re actors). On the second day, we’ll open up the excel template. You’ll use this to dig into finances, figuring out how to fit this new product within the company portfolio, what happens to accounting depending on those decisions, and how we should be allocating budget to our product teams to fund this development and other initiatives. We’ll then make a decision as a company on whether to invest in this new line of business. By emphasizing hands-on activities throughout, we make sure that you have an opportunity to practice the skills critical to building a compelling business case. At the end, you’ll have the right tools to build a data-driven business case for your next feature or product.&nbsp;

Hands-on practice choosing a business model and building out a business case

Product managers who want to become more business-oriented&nbsp;

Engineers and designers who want to drive more business impact in their work.

Aspiring product leaders who want to develop the business acumen to advance in their careers.

Who is this course for

What you’ll get out of this course

Understand the core tradeoffs around different business models and recommend one with confidence.

Know how to choose the right business model

Talking to users to figure out their business fundamentals can be hard. We'll have actors join our course so you can practice your interview skills – not just theoretical exercises.

Interview users to identify value

Get excel templates that will walk you through the inputs needed to make back-of-the-envelop business decisions so you can have a seat at the table.

Build compelling financial models

Strategic decisions are based on understanding the underlying financials. Practice presenting and making these decisions yourself.

Actively participate in a build/buy or go/no-go decision

Executives and MBAs talk in a lot of acronyms: ARPU, EBIDA, ROI, etc. Learn what the alphabet soup means and how to use it in your own communications.&nbsp;

Learn the lingo to make your case

Provide a brief description for each module as a way to sell the value of what students will be learning throughout the course.

First Module

Second Module

Third Module

Course syllabus

What people are saying

Meet your instructor

Day 1: Connecting user needs to business value Through interviewing customers, you'll come up with the basic business model to make your case.

Thursday

Day 2: Underlying business fundamentals﻿Taking the business model developed on day 1, expand it out to include further revenue opportunities, expenses, and make a go/no-go decision around whether to build this product.

Friday

Hands-on business case creation

This course builds on live workshops and hands-on projects

Active hands-on learning

You’ll be interacting with other learners through breakout rooms and project teams

Interactive and project-based

Join a community of like-minded people who want to learn and grow alongside you

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About this course

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