Business Outcome Fields

Business Outcomes are intentionally concise — a clear goal statement and a priority are the core of each record.

What it’s for: The outcome statement — a clear description of what the business wants to achieve.
What to include:
- Write as a goal the business wants to realise, not a feature the system must provide.
- Be specific enough that it is clear what success looks like.
- Where possible, make it measurable: “by 60%”, “within 24 hours”, “without manual intervention”.
- Keep to one outcome per record — if you find yourself writing “and…”, consider splitting.
Examples:
- "Reduce the time taken to process a supplier invoice from receipt to payment approval by at least 60%."
- "Enable field engineers to access job records, update job status, and submit reports from any location without returning to the office."
- "Provide customers with real-time visibility of their order status at every stage of fulfilment."

What it’s for: Classifies the relative importance of this outcome to the business.
Options:

Priority	Meaning
Must Have	This outcome is essential to the success of the solution — a failure to deliver it means the solution fails
Should Have	This outcome is important and should be delivered; its absence would be a significant shortcoming but not a project failure
Could Have	This outcome is desirable but lower priority; it should be included if time and budget allow
Won’t Have	This outcome is out of scope for the current phase; it may be revisited in a future release

Guidance: Apply MoSCoW from the business’s perspective — “If we only shipped the Must Haves, would the business accept this solution?” The answer should be yes (though reluctantly). Should Haves and Could Haves provide the stretch targets.

Relationship	What to link
Supports Business Requirement	Business Requirements that contribute to delivering this outcome — establishes the traceability chain from goal to functional scope
Has Acceptance Criteria	The criteria by which this outcome will be judged as achieved
Has Business Scenario	Business scenarios that illustrate what achieving this outcome looks like in practice
Implements Use Case	Use cases that contribute to delivering this outcome
Supports Design Decision	Architecture or design decisions that were made in order to deliver this outcome
Has Risk	Risks to achieving this outcome
Has Assumption	Assumptions being made in order for this outcome to be achievable
Has Issue	Known issues affecting the delivery of this outcome
Has FAQ	Frequently asked questions about this outcome
Implements Business Reference	Reference documents, strategies, or policies that this outcome is aligned with