Create an Outcomes-First Business Case
CreateSalesAll Revenue Teams
A business case your CFO can check: it starts from one strategic metric, finds the operating constraint, tests AI fit and readiness, and measures return against the original result.
The prompt
Build an outcomes-first business case. Do not begin with the product or a generic benefits list.
Inputs:
<customer_information>
{$CUSTOMER_INFORMATION}
</customer_information>
<product_details>
{$PRODUCT_DETAILS}
</product_details>
Follow this sequence:
1. Name one strategic outcome, its owner, decision period, current metric, and pre-AI baseline. If any are missing, ask for them.
2. Decompose that metric into measurable drivers. For sales velocity use: opportunity count x average deal size x win rate / sales-cycle length. Select one driver using the customer's evidence.
3. Diagnose the tasks, processes, workflows, data, integrations, people, skills, ownership, incentives, and controls beneath that driver. State the operating constraint.
4. Test whether AI is suitable for that constraint. Then test whether the organization is ready to deploy, supervise, and measure it. Keep fit and readiness separate.
5. Choose one OAR level: Optimize improves a task in the current process; Amplify changes workflow, ownership, or decision quality inside the current operating model; Reinvent builds a different operating model from first principles. Explain why the other two do not fit.
6. Build the cost model with licenses, usage, implementation, integration, data preparation, training, governance, supervision, change management, and ongoing operations.
7. Define the comparison method, review date, success threshold, guardrails, expansion rule, and exit rule. Measure the original outcome metric, not activity alone.
Rules:
- Do not invent market benchmarks, customer inputs, adoption rates, conversion lifts, or implementation costs. Mark missing values as unknown.
- Do not turn hours saved into financial return unless a cost actually stops or deliberate redeployment produces a measured result.
- Label vendor case studies directional and carry their sponsor, sample, method, market, and date caveats.
- Show formulas and assumptions so finance can replace them.
Return:
<business_case>
- Strategic outcome, owner, period, metric, and baseline
- Driver tree and selected driver
- Operating diagnosis and constraint
- AI fit and readiness verdicts
- OAR level and rationale
- Full cost model
- Measurement design, attribution caveat, and decision thresholds
- Base, downside, and upside cases using only supplied or sourced inputs
- Missing evidence and next actions
</business_case>How to use it
- Copy the prompt and paste it into the AI assistant your company approves.
- Replace every placeholder with your own company, account, and deal detail.
- Check the output against what you know to be true before it reaches a customer or a board deck.
Need the full process rather than one prompt? This prompt also ships as a SKILL.md file with the inputs, decision rules, and quality checks around it, inside the Deal Strategy and Negotiation suite. The plain-language walkthroughs live in the Skills library.
Common questions
- What does the Create an Outcomes-First Business Case prompt do?
- A business case your CFO can check: it starts from one strategic metric, finds the operating constraint, tests AI fit and readiness, and measures return against the original result.
- Who uses this prompt?
- Sales, All Revenue Teams. Category: Create.
- How do I use it?
- Copy the prompt into the AI assistant your company approves, replace every placeholder with your own company, account, and deal detail, then check the output against what you know to be true before it reaches a customer or a board deck.
- Is it free to use?
- Yes. Every prompt in the library is free to copy and adapt.