How do I build a convincing business case for a new idea?
Almost every answer to this question online gives you the same generic template: project the return, add visuals, tell a story. What it leaves out is the thing that actually changes the work. Where you started decides which route you have to take.
The Innovation Maze sets out four of them, because innovation does not begin the same way twice: "Whether you start with a business challenge, with a (startup) idea, with a technology or with a problem of one of your clients; you just have to pick the right route through the maze." Each route is worked out with a real case: the idea route with Airbnb, the technology route with Google Glass, the customer issue route with Hovding, the business challenge route with LEGO.
The routes lead to the same place, and the book is precise about what waits there. A business case is not judged on its numbers alone. In the boardroom it is evaluated from at least five perspectives: the customer, will they buy it; the technology, can we deliver it; the business model, will it pay off; the risk, what do we risk if it fails and what if it is a huge success; and the fit, why should we do it, what is the strategic perspective.
Knowing those five in advance is what turns a business case from a document into an argument. You can test your own case against them before anyone else does, and you can see which of the five your route has left thin.