“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

These of course are the words of President John F. Kennedy in his famous speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962. One of the reasons many people in business highlight this part of his speech is because it’s a great example of a business case.

A business case is simply the justification or reasoning behind initiating a project or task. This is critical when you’re needing to get buy-in from those individuals whose support is required to execute on your project or task. You’ll find many different definitions of a business case and many methods on how to put it together. I’m personally a fan of keeping it short and simple while making sure to cover the Why?, What?, and When?.

If we go back to JFK’s speech:

What?: “We choose to go to the moon.“

When?: “We choose to go to the moon in this decade…”

Why?: “…because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win…”

As I always suggest, make building a business case your own by doing some research on it and using those methods that you find most interesting. But make sure not to skip this step when getting ready to pursue something, especially if that something is something big. Even if you don’t need any support, putting it together just for yourself is very helpful. It’s like entering your destination on a GPS, it will give you a clear direction on where you need to go and it’s something you can check back on to make sure you are staying on course.

Going back to the JFK’s speech, I just want to point out one last thing. He says, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard..” We’ve heard it many times before and we keep hearing about it every day, how successful people believe in doing the hard things, the things that make them feel uncomfortable. And with all the media streams available now, we hear about it more than ever. It should no longer be a question of having to be convinced about this, but a question of when you’re going to decide to act!