How to make the case for your project in under a minute
The situation
A director has put you on the spot: justify your project, now, in the corridor. You know it inside out but you've never had to make the case in under a minute. What do you say?
They open with: “Walk me through why we should spend money on this. Convince me.”
Why it's hard: You know the work inside out, but being put on the spot means you'll either ramble or lead with the part that fascinates you rather than the part they care about.
Two things you could say
“The problem is [X], which costs us roughly [Y] a month. This fixes it for [Z], so it pays back in about [N]. That's the whole case — happy to go deeper on any of it.”
Problem, cost, fix, payback in four sentences gives a decision-maker exactly the shape they need, and leading with the money is leading with what they actually care about.
“Quick version: right now [the painful thing] happens every week. This stops it. The reason it's worth doing now rather than later is [the deadline or the compounding cost].”
Anchoring on the recurring pain and the cost of waiting creates urgency without hype, which is far more persuasive to a sceptic than a list of features.
What to avoid
"So, there's a lot of moving parts, but basically it's really exciting because..." — opening on your excitement rather than their problem tells a busy director this is about you, and "a lot of moving parts" signals you can't yet say it clearly.
The principle
Problem, cost of the problem, what you'd do, what it returns — four sentences. Lead with the thing THEY care about, which is almost never the thing you find most interesting.
The skill underneath it
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