We have a goal to deliver the business value on 100% of IT projects. To do that we need Benefit Realization process. The process has to be simple and realistically executable.
Any ideas or examples ?
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Darren KosaPlanning & Controls ContractorHampshire, United Kingdom
Benefit Realisation Management or… the four “ares”
Are the right things being done?
Are they being done correctly?
Are they being done well?
Are you (the business) getting the benefits?
Benefits, tangible or intangible, just don’t magically appear, in fact a lot of time and effort needs to be invested by unambiguously defining the benefits from the outset. Establishing a robust business case where the benefits can be baselined is an obvious starting point although you may want to tackle this at a higher level.
Some things you need to think about
1) What does a benefit mean to the business? Is it just ROI or are there strategic benefits that also need to be realised?
2) How does your business approve projects? Is there enough rigor in the process to guarantee that the benefits have a realistic chance of being delivered in the agreed upon timeframe?
3) Is there a business culture of seeing projects though to the bitter end, regardless of whether or not the project still remains a viable proposition?
4) Is there the business buy-in, not only by ownership but also through a collaborative process, enablng this venture to be successful?
5) Are there people identified who will be responsible for reviewing and delivering the benefits stated in the business case? Do they have the drive to focus on the benefit(s) from initiation all the way through to delivery?
6) When will the benefits be realised? During project delivery or post-project? Are they long-term or short-term benefits?
7) Is there a requirement to have a benefits realisation plan included as part of the overall project management plan?
6) Will benefit delivery be actively reported on as part of wider project performance measures?
8) Where will you measure the benefits? Project, Programme or Portfolio level? It’s worth bearing in mind that specific benefits could be eclipsed by the cumulative impact of individual projects.
9) How will you measure the measurements? There needs to be some assurance that the metrics are relevant to the business and its stakeholders.
I could go on, but it all boils down to knowing what you’re delivering, how you’re going to deliver it and whether it’s still worth delivering. This can either be done by structured benefits delivery assessments throughout the project lifecycle or if this seems overly bureaucratic the PM / Sponsor / Benefits Delivery Manager can review the business case when there is a change in scope.
There aren’t really any hard and fast rules to BRM, what’s good for the goose is not always good for the gander, but it always pays to get it right from the beginning and save a lot of pain at the end.
I have never heard it called a "benefits realization process", but the work that I do on aligning projects to organizational strategy certainly relates to project benefits.
Take a look at this article on project charters:
http://www.alexsbrown.com/the-charter-pmi-na-cong-2005.html You will see that the main purpose of the charter, in my view, is to capture the business value of the project proposal. How we will deliver the project and the work involved is critical at later stages of the project, but at the very start we need to articulate its final benefits.
Scroll to the bottom of the page, or explore some of the tags on my site for "charters" and "strategic" and I think you will find other useful information.
I find that the biggest mistake that people make when trying to measure benefits is that they try to look at projects only AFTER they are done. They look at old projects to see what benefits they provided. That information is interesting historically, but there is nothing you can do about it. Perhaps you can use the data to influence future projects, but only if you are doing a similar type of project in the future.
Estimating and evaluating the benefits of projects you have not yet started gives useful information 100% of the time. You can decide whether or not to proceed, based on that estimate. Also, if you estimate expected benefits, you can track the actual benefits as you progress. Collecting data about expected benefits is much easier than reverse-engineering a list of benefits from a completed project that had no list of expected benefits, or whose benefits were mixed in with a list of tasks and project-based deliverables.
2 years after your post I have an answer for you and a potential solution.
I have asked the same question you did more times than you can imagine, and I have received many fantastic comments and have hypothesized until the cows came home....still no results.
Therefore, borne out of my frustration, I built a Business Benefits Realisation template wnich is based on a full Benefits life cycle.
If you are still puzzled as to how you can tackle this problem, feel free to contact me.
Regards
Craig
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1 reply by Ime Udoko
Dec 16, 2015 10:41 AM
Ime Udoko
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The template you attached seems to be incomplete. Kindly attach the completed one.
Regards
Saving Changes...
Ime UdokoHead IT Compliance, Risks and Standards | NNPCLagos, Nigeria
Aug 11, 2010 8:44 PM
Replying to Craig Wilkins
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Hi all,
2 years after your post I have an answer for you and a potential solution.
I have asked the same question you did more times than you can imagine, and I have received many fantastic comments and have hypothesized until the cows came home....still no results.
Therefore, borne out of my frustration, I built a Business Benefits Realisation template wnich is based on a full Benefits life cycle.
If you are still puzzled as to how you can tackle this problem, feel free to contact me.
Regards
Craig
The template you attached seems to be incomplete. Kindly attach the completed one.
