How to present your business case and get to yes

By the time a business case reaches the executive meeting, the decision is often already made, by the conversations that happened before it. Gartner’s research on complex purchases finds a typical buying group involves "six to 10 decision makers", and that buyers spend only about 17% of their time meeting suppliers (Gartner). Most of the persuading happens in rooms the training provider never enters. It is done by you.

This part of the guide is about that work: who decides, when to put the case forward, what to put on the page, and how to make the ask easy to say yes to. It builds on the values case, the financial case and the funding routes.

Who actually says yes to OVA training?

A group, not a person: usually an executive sponsor and the CFO, advised by WHS, risk, nursing leadership and quality. Map who decides and who advises, and give each of them the argument that matters to them.

When should I put my case forward?

In the business planning round, months before 1 July, with a smaller version ready for the mid-year review. State health systems fund each health service through an annual agreement or statement of priorities, and the state budget lands in May or June. Local timetables vary, so ask your finance business partner for the dates.

1. Months before 1 July

   Business planning

   Health services plan next year’s priorities and budget bids. Get your case into this round.

2. May to June

   State budget

   The state budget sets health funding for the year ahead.

3. From July

   Service agreements

   Agreements between each health service and the department are finalised, some well into the year.

4. Around September to December

   Mid-year review

   A second window for in-year funding. Have a small, ready-to-go version of your case.

Sources: service agreements and statements of priorities for NSW, Victoria, Queensland and WA. Timing is typical, not fixed: check your own service.

What should the one-page summary say?

The recommendation first, then the problem, the options, the cost, the benefits, the risks and how you’ll measure success. That is the order state treasury business cases use (NSW, Victoria, Queensland), compressed to one page. The Australian Government Style Manual puts it simply: "The most important idea comes first" (Style Manual).

Why should I include doing nothing as an option?

Because every state framework compares options against the status quo, and the cost of doing nothing is often your strongest argument. Queensland Treasury’s guidance, for example, treats the status quo as the base case for every option (Project Assessment Framework). Put doing nothing in numbers: the incidents, claims, days lost and seclusion and restraint you can expect next year if nothing changes. Then show one-off training, the recommended program and a pilot beside it.

How do I link the case to accreditation and legal duties?

Map it to the national safety standards and to the duties your executives and board already carry.

• Accreditation: NSQHS action 5.34 requires processes to "implement de-escalation strategies", and its guidance includes training the workforce in them (ACSQHC). Action 5.36 asks services to minimise and, where possible, eliminate seclusion, and report its use to the governing body (ACSQHC).
• Officers’ due diligence: executives and board members must take reasonable steps to understand WHS risks and to provide and verify "appropriate resources and processes to eliminate or minimise risks" (Comcare; Safe Work Australia).
• Board oversight: the Australian Institute of Company Directors reminds directors of their individual due-diligence duties for psychosocial risks, and lists insufficient training among the red flags (AICD).
• The risk register: find the occupational violence entry on your organisation’s risk register and show which controls your proposal strengthens.

How do I get people on side before the meeting?

Brief each decision maker one to one, fix their objections, and send the papers in advance. Harvard Business Review’s advice on persuading a manager is the same: put the idea on one written page, including the costs and hurdles, before the meeting (HBR).

Should I ask for a pilot instead of a full rollout?

Often, yes: a time-limited pilot on one or two units, with an agreed evaluation and a decision point, is a smaller risk for approvers to accept. The Australian Centre for Evaluation describes a pilot as a way to understand implementation, look for evidence of promise, test feasibility, and decide whether to scale (Australian Centre for Evaluation). Agree the scale-up decision before you start, so a good result leads straight to the next step.

How will we know it worked?

Set a baseline, then measure at four levels, from how the training was received to what changed on the ward. These are the four levels of Kirkpatrick’s model, commonly used to evaluate de-escalation training (IAHSS Foundation). Knowledge and confidence alone don’t show clinical impact, so plan for level 4 from the start.

In Victoria, the Department of Health also publishes a framework for evaluating occupational violence and aggression training. Collect three to six months of baseline data from systems you already use before training starts, and report to the same committee every quarter.