Important note:  this work was completed in 2009.

I was assigned as program manager to implement a major telecommunications ebonding capability for mobility services to signature customers throughout the world. This was a program to make a repeatable process that would help define a customized catalog of services for each customer yet a common interface to performing suppliers that would actually fulfill the orders for example a customer may have mobility needs in multiple countries throughout the world one in South America one in Asia one in Germany warning the Netherlands one in United States one in Mexico etc. etc. and there was no common wireless carrier they could fulfill all these orders. Each country had its own set of rules and data sets that made a single interface impossible to implement. My role as program manager involves several different steps:

1. Determine the key stakeholders in the program. I was given the charge to implement program management but there wasn’t any formal documents that made such an announcement. So I created a program charter and had an executive sign it and email it to his peers to authorize resources to plan the program.
2. Assembled a small team from the product house, operations, and IT to create a joint definition of work effort.
3. Shared this document with multiple organizations to assemble a core team of stakeholders and a responsibility matrix.
4. Created a program plan which defined various work packages and the time box timeframe for certain deliverables. Among these deliverables were a business requirements document. Benefits realization plan, and a governance model.
5. Developed seven project charters to implement the work efforts. Three of the charters were specific to IT development one of the charters was to the marketing and technical implementation plan two of the charters were specific to process and lifecycle support, and final charter were specific to developing a repeatable process for catalog management.
6. Mapped the cost of the projects based on a high-level order magnitude to a benefits realization plan and established the expectations for the deliverables.

To summarize, my planning processes is first to make sure I have owners and executive sponsorship from the business, next it is to do a program charter the authorized organizations to commit resources to the planning, next is planning the roadmap and the business realization plans, next is to issue a program plan which outlined how work package are aligned which then will generate a charter for each project that will help meet those objectives. Once the charters are defined a project manager will be assigned there will be responsible for implementing the requirements of the work. Tools and techniques that I use in this planning process is constant communication and dialogue with key stakeholders and a small work team. Interacting with knowledge workers through facilitating meetings with different organization to define business rules, program requirements, baselining documents and using the concept of progressive elaboration to monitor control their evolution from a planning cycle until project implementation. Finally, the process involves interacting with the teams through a defined governance model so all organizations know the protocol for handling issues, communicating status, and reporting task completion.

What vs. When?

It never fails to amaze me how many hours are spent trying to wordsmith terms and schedules in order to meet rules of political correctness.   I have spent hours of my career pretending we are developing a project plan focused on including a suite of capabilities to be delivered together, when in reality – there is an imposed constraint (due date) that must be met.  So therefore the question needs to be asked:  Is it a case of WHEN we can deliver all the capabilities, or is it a question of WHAT can we deliver by a certain date.  I’m not arguing one over the other, my argument is that time is much better spent using the Benefits model when there is a dictated delivery date.  The scope needs to be focused on WHAT can be delivered in the timebox.

This is where a well-defined benefits hierarchy helps the program manager.  The benefits hierarchy of benefit, outcome, and capability is a foundation for creating the roadmap and eventually the project deliverables.  Focusing on what provides the biggest benefits – rather than the contents of the "what in this timeframe can be defined" should drive the best decision within the defined constraints. (Let’s assume that all capabilities have the same cost/quality as this information may be implied within the benefit definition and associated attributes).  In the simplest sense, the scope of the project in the given time box can be determined by doing a binary check of each capability and what it contributes to the benefit.   Can we deliver this benefit in this timeframe? 

I know this assumes a logical quantitative world in which there are no pet projects and all people are rational – but it’s nice to dream.   However; in the imperfect world in which we live the capabilities should be prioritized first as high, medium, and low.  I imagine at that point all the lows are crossed off the list and ice boxed and the mediums are put on hold.  Then you should take the high benefit contributing capabilities and rank those as high medium and low.  (High is the same as mandatory).  Then ask the question:  Can all these be delivered in the timebox?  If the answer is no – you must move the time constraint!!!. 

If the answer is yes, you then ask, can it include any more capabilities?  If that answer is yes, you then need to independently rank the mediums and then go down one by one and ask the question: can we do the highs plus this one?  If yes – add it to the list, if no – it gets put into the icebox.

Now somebody will bring up the idea of well if I can have 2 and 5 but not 1, then I want to do that.  This exercise is one of those that sounds nice in theory, but becomes very expensive in practice.  The program manager really needs to make sure that the benefit/capabilities stand on their own.  And if they want to combine them – then the combined benefit is what must be evaluated against the line.  It really doesn’t make sense to spend lots of cycles piecing together different scenarios in order to see WHAT CAPABILITIES  we can get delivered, we should focus on WHAT BENEFITS can we start to realize.  This game leads to the bad practice of putting in low value capabilities just because we can get them in by a date as opposed to looking at the high value capabilities that will drive real benefits.

My daydream is over.  The politics of organizations will drive the game.  Unless a complete OCM project has been implemented that drives the decision model driven by benefits is in place – the games of how many things can I fit in the time box will continue.    But keep the faith program managers – by forcing benefits to be evaluated while these decisions are being made will be worth it when the icebox is opened for the next timebox.

The term "Governance" is frequently used in discussion about project and program management.  While this term infers a common means of how a program is managed, it is mis used, misunderstood, misaligned, and adds to confusion instead of clarity.

In the people sense, governance implies how we will play together in the sandbox.  The protocols for proper communication, the decision making process, and general "how to do things" are all part of the governance model.   

However, at the program level, you must also consider the sense of value governance.  Value governance is looking at he results of the delivered capabilities against expected the expected benefits.  This is evaluating the results of the work, not how the people interact to accomplish the work.

Thus effective program governance helps ensure that the promised value is achieved as benefits are delivered. The resulting benefits review requires analysis of the planned versus actual benefits across a wide range of factors, including the key performance indicators. In particular, the following aspects should be analyzed and assessed during the Benefits Delivery phase:

• Strategic alignment. Focuses on ensuring the linkage of enterprise and program plans; on defining, maintaining, and validating the program value proposition; and on aligning program management with enterprise operations management. For internally focused programs, the benefits realization processes measure how the new benefits affect the flow of operations of the organization as the change is introduced and how negative impacts and the potential disruptiveness of introducing the change may be minimized.

• Value delivery. Focuses on ensuring that the program delivers the promised benefits and that these benefits translate into value. There may be a window of opportunity for the realization of a particular planned benefit and for that benefit to generate real value. The program manager, program governance board, and key stakeholders may determine if the window of opportunity was met or compromised by actual events in the program or component projects (for example, a delay, cost overrun, or feature reduction). Investments may also have time value, where shifts in component schedules have additional financial impact.

Adding the dimension of value to the dimension of people interaction contributes to the confusion around the term governance.  But in both circumstances, governance determines how decisions are made.  ?

The Project Management Institute® (PMI) has defined a Benefits Realization model for a Program Manager to use to help the company capture the expectations of an investment.  The concept of the model is to provide a structure from the initial planning through to actual realization (or booking) of the benefits into a new Business As Usual change.  The five steps are loosely structures to be hierarchical in flow, but allows for a progressive elaboration approach as more information becomes available during program implementation.

Benefits Identification

This is the initial step of capturing the potential benefits that can be realized by the program.  This step is analogous to a brain storming session and will result in a canonical listing of potential benefits.  There are many sources for gathering this information including business documents, brainstorming sessions, extraction from a business plan, external factor analysis, organizational strategic objectives, and expert knowledge.  Many organizations will group the list into various categories to assist in analysis and eventual ownership.   The outcome of this step should be a list of potential benefits in a benefits register.

Benefits Analysis and Planning

This is the means of qualifying and quantifying benefits.  If the benefits Identification step produces a canonical list of benefits, then each benefit needs to pass a “test” to see if it truly qualifies as a benefit, or to help prioritize benefits.  The benefits register should contain the associated algorithms and business rules/logic required to define the value of the benefit.   The analysis will also include setting an expectation for the value of the benefit and a relationship of the benefits against sequence, time, and dependencies.  A significant portion of this step is to align company performance metrics (KPI) to be able to measure, demonstrate, the results of the implementation.  The end result of this step should be the Benefits Realization Plan (BRP) which formally documents the activities required for achieving the program’s planned objective.  Included in the Benefits Realization Plan is a program roadmap which documents the expected delivery of the value of the benefit against time.   The BRP will also define how the benefits will be transition to operations at the end of component deliver and the sustainability expectations.  The Benefits Realization Plan is a control document and needs to be baselined and managed under strict change control throughout the life of the program.

Benefits Delivery

This is the means of actually placing the changes into the business and the start of seeing the expected benefits in the business reporting infrastructure.  Since Programs will include multiple components, the delivery will be an iterative process and will span from the first project completion through to Program Closure.  Using the baselined BRP, the program resources will conduct monitor and control activities to analyze the results and prescribe corrective action.   Part of this prescriptive corrective action is to ensure the Benefits Register is aligned with the monitor and control activities.  The final litmus test of the benefit delivery is to ensure the results are properly accounted in the company Profit and Loss (P&L) applications (or  they are “booked”).

Benefits Transition

This is the means of recognizing the programs have defined ends and that benefits might be realized long past the closure of the program.  The Benefits Owner will eventually assign benefits realization to an operations function where it measures the benefits as part of a “Business As Usual” process.  This implies that monitor and control and associated prescriptive action is no longer the responsibility of the Program manager, but not the operations manager.

Another important aspect of the Benefits Transition is that operations team will often view a suite of benefits as one item.  For example there may be six benefits included in a project software enhancement, the operations team will most likely look at that as one enhancement.  Therefore, the benefits transition process, and associated artifacts, will consolidate coordinated benefits into the package to east transition.  The outcome of this phase will be the standardized reporting of benefits to associated benefit and business owners.

Benefits Sustainment

Finally, benefits need to be sustained over the lifecycle of the change initiative.  Many times the benefits will be forecasts over time, as defined in the benefits roadmap, and the time frames will expand past the life of the program.  After benefits are transitions, they need to be sustained.

Monitor and control and taking corrective action is a portion of the sustainment steps, but it can include much more.  It is possible that during the lifecycle of the change that previously unidentified benefits are realized, these “emergent” benefits should be documented and through the use of structured change control, incorporated into the benefits reporting models. 

Conclusion

The PMI Benefits realization model defines a structured set of phased to support the identification of, analysis of, monitoring and control of, the transition of, and the sustainment of benefits throughout the lifecycle of the change.  The model also encompasses the “care and feeding” of benefits after transition to operations and helps to validate the true return on investment to the organization.  Benefits Management needs to be incorporated into an organizations knitting and be considered in all aspects of the program.

Sources

Letavec, Craig J. Strategic Benefits Realization: Optimizing Value through Programs, Portfolios and Organizational Change Management. Plantation, Fl.: J. Ross, 2014. Print.

The Standard for Program Management. Vol. 3. Newtown Square, Pa: Project Management Institute, 2013.

We're All In This Together !!!

Dave

Of Course I Know What Benefits Are

Adopting an organization that is benefit’s centric as opposed to project centric involves many dimensions.  At the heart of this adoption is change management and mindset realignment.  The model that Benefits Management is directly aligned with a Cost/Benefit Case study is the first, and probably, the most difficult, mindset to change.  A fundamental question is:  “are you willing to look at costs benefits over what the new ability being delivered to the business, over the cost and benefit of completing an activity to deliver a product or service?”

I like to call the project benefits focused mindset as an “activity centric” approach to organizing and managing the work.  An activity focused approach establishes a foundation of what will be done (scope) when it will be done (schedule) and how much is it going to cost me (cost).  Once the baseline is established for the work – the project manager monitors and controls against this triple constraint and measures its success against the activities that are completed (requirements, development, testing, etc.) until the product or service is complete and moved to operations.  Benefit centric organizations, while they treat projects as important, consider the benefits of the work in progress and delivered as the critical component in decision making.

One of the common challenges I have face when trying to introduce benefits realization to an activity centric organization is the roadblock that:  “We already know about Benefits”.  Their paradigm (and I don’t mean this as a buzzword) is in relation to Cost Benefits cases and it’s relevance to projects.  One of the first mindset changes in moving from an activity centric environment to a benefits centric environment is that benefits are realized from many components, not just a specific product or service.  Projects (in which a product or service capability is built) are one factor in the benefit equation as well as other components such as workflow modification, licensing agreement changes, supplier costs, etc.

The shift in a benefits centric organization is that the benefit comes first, not the triple constraint of the project.  The benefit is directly aligned with a strategic intent of the organization and various components delivery things to contribute to the benefits.  If the benefits forecast change, the overall amount of work being done might change.  You might decide not to do some projects, or cut the scope of projects.  While in an activity based organization, you traditionally focused on something changed in the ability to create the product/service and deal with accordingly with no alignment with how it meets the benefits once it goes live.  While a benefits centric organization truly tries to answer the question, did the work we did – return the results we expected.  It doesn’t end when the project does.

This concept takes a little while to grasp and does represent a new mindset.  We are approaching it slowly as there are several concepts that must be understood before getting into the mechanics of benefits realization.

We're All In This Together !!!

Dave