Not always. Value stems from belief. I may value (if known) that there are alien life forms on some distant planet. I am unlikely to benefit directly from it. In a project context, when it comes to terminology, yes most people interchange the two terms. I see benefits though as a subset of value, that being we define value in projects but receive pre-defined benefits from it. If a company sees value in implementing a PMO, it will measure value through the benefits it receives from that implementation. You can map these benefits to value (or the strategic objectives of the company) in a number of ways. Our own Elizabeth Harrin details one way to do this:
weiying zhongassistant store manager| starbucksAurora, Ontario, Canada
Fulfill the project objectives, requirements; meet customer satisfaction. The objectives could be not monetary since it depends on the nature of the project.
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1 reply by Vincent Guerard
Jul 22, 2018 9:50 PM
Vincent Guerard
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Weiying,
Not all benefits are financial. Do you distinguish between benefits and objectives?
Fulfill the project objectives, requirements; meet customer satisfaction. The objectives could be not monetary since it depends on the nature of the project.
Weiying,
Not all benefits are financial. Do you distinguish between benefits and objectives? Saving Changes...
Vivek BhatiaPrincipal| The Bhatia GroupOakland, Ca, United States
I've done tons of business cases, I like to break up benefits into 3 categories:
1) Tangible & Easily quantifiable (this is what most people think about. It's the I in ROI)
2) Tangible & not easily quantifiable (hard dollars will be returned for sure but its difficult to estimate with any degree of confidence)
3) Intangible (increased customer satisfaction, etc)
Put things in that order and you'll be speaking a language the CFO & CEO understand. I've gotten multi-million dollar projects funded despite #1 only offsetting 50% of the spend, at a very stingy company, because I was able to demonstrate how #2 would be insane. When told to quantify, my retort was "okay but that'll take 3 months and it'll be fuzzy. Are you sure you wouldn't rather just start realizing those savings 3 months sooner by funding me now?"
To use the old joke, 80% of the time it worked every time :-) Saving Changes...
