Expected Project Benefits - How do you ensure they are realized?
Mike FrenetteManager, IT PMO| Halifax Water (retired)Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Projects exist because they provide benefit to the organization that commissioned them. But often the benefits of a project, realized through the use of the products of the project, are long term and accrue long after the project is finished.
How do you make sure your project delivers its expected benefits when your project ends and you and your team take on the next project? Saving Changes...
To ensure expected project benefits are realized, start by clearly defining and prioritizing benefits with measurable outcomes and aligning them with organizational goals. Develop a Benefits Realization Plan with assigned accountability and track progress using metrics and tools like dashboards. Integrate benefits management throughout the project lifecycle and conduct Post-Implementation Reviews to assess outcomes and address gaps. Regularly adapt plans to evolving needs, foster collaboration across stakeholders, and promote a culture of accountability and transparency to sustain benefits over time.
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1 reply by Mike Frenette
Mar 13, 2025 8:37 PM
Mike Frenette
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It's that culture of accountability that is the rub. The PM cannot be responsible for a achieving the expected benefits, but the or she can have a business benefits owner appointed who will take accountability. And they can arrange checkpoint meetings as part of project planning even though they're not part of the project. I way to help this succeed is to ensure that the benefits owners are also the ones who benefit from the use of the products of the project. Making benefits ownership highly visible to the executive team is a great way to make sure that the benefits realization meetings are scheduled after the project and happen.
Saving Changes...
Eric SimmsSenior Program ManagerBaltimore, Maryland, United States
I've informally done this by maintaining contact with the major project stakeholders; for example, I'd occasionally ask them if the delivered product was meeting their needs. However, there should be a formal way to ensure a completed project delivers its expected benefits.
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1 reply by Mike Frenette
Mar 13, 2025 8:38 PM
Mike Frenette
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Exactly! You can make it formal by appointing benefits owners who are bought in to achieving the business value through the use of the products of the project.
Program Manager, PPM&PMO Specialist.| Coppel, Mexico.Culiacán, Sinaloa, Mexico
Hi Mike, In my experience, one year after project completion, we do a review to measure the results. This helps us see if we hit the mark. We track key metrics and compare them to the original goals. It's important to see if the project really delivered the benefits we expected. I hope this help, Regards! Francisco.
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1 reply by Mike Frenette
Mar 13, 2025 8:43 PM
Mike Frenette
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Those key metrics are important and can be developed from the business case used to justify the project. It always amazes me when projects are justified based on business cases and then never get revisited! Benefits owners who are part of the business, not only the project, are key.
By the time a project has started a lot of the key decisions related to benefits have already been made including the decision to invest in the project itself. If the underlying business case did not articulate it sufficiently, the team should work with the sponsor or an appropriate business lead to identify an objective, operational measure for benefits, get a baseline for those, and then track the realized and anticipated benefits over the project's life time. The team should also ensure there is someone identified for taking over benefits management once the project has ended.
Kiron
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1 reply by Mike Frenette
Mar 13, 2025 8:46 PM
Mike Frenette
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Absolutely! A formal benefits owner appointed and made known to the business is a great way to go. Tracking of benefits during the project are more about ensuring the products of the project that should cause the benefits to accrue are produced - almost like a ln RTM - Benefits traceability.
Product Operations Program ManagerBarcelona, Cataluña, Spain
Great question. Benefit management is an essential part of project management and yet it is often overlooked. The answers provided in the thread are spot on.
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1 reply by Mike Frenette
Mar 13, 2025 8:47 PM
Mike Frenette
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And PMI's Benefits Realization Management Practice Guide is a great place to start!
There is another side to this question that is on my mind, a lot, lately. At many of the companies I'm familiar with, either first hand or anecdotally, key decisions are made before the PM is involved, and once the project is over the project manager and most of the project team don't hear anything more about it unless something breaks. The PM can help put the BRM plan in place, but may never see it again beyond 2-4 weeks after project conclusion. The side I'm thinking of is motivation.
Working in IT, for a lot of what we deliver, we just assume it's useful, churning out code day after day. There can be a big disconnect between what we do and seeing how it adds value to the company. Is it helping achieve strategic objectives or is it just a useless feature that got approved due to a HiPPO decision? This doesn't happen just in IT; the disconnect between work and value can be highly demotivational in any department. Depending on how things work at our companies, we might have some influence on this. Some of us might even have some control over it. But, largely, these are organizational decisions that many project managers don't get the opportunity to participate in. But, if you can help team members create that mental connection between their day-to-day work (project or otherwise) and the success of the company, you will find that it is one of the factors that can motivate your team members.
What I'm doing at my current employer, that I wasn't able to accomplish at prior employers (due to factors like how the role of PM was viewed and company politics), is working with the leadership team to make the connection between company strategy and the project work we do, and make it visible to the teams. Call it portfolio management lite. We have a backlog, if you will, of objectives in various stages of readiness. Our teams know when we're working on one of these issues and what we're hoping to accomplish. We're setting up dashboards to track impact of the changes. We don't always have clear ROI defined, but we're working on it.
Obviously, this does not motivate everyone, but it does motivate me. I've been at companies where my suggestions to move in this direction were ignored. At one company, after reviewing the "strategic" plans (highly siloed, if you ask me), and sharing feedback and recommendations with my director, my director got in trouble for sharing the plans with me, like they were some kind of secret.
To tie this all back together, for those that aren't aware, the tools and processes to help "make sure your project delivers its expected benefits when your project ends" exist and are fairly easy to find. The biggest obstacle to being able to do something with these tools and processes is organizational change. Maybe you'll be able to bring it up and people will say "Great idea! We hadn't considered that before," and you're on your way. But, at some companies, this will be a major transformation and something project managers will not be able to initiate on their own. In these cases, having a good grasp of organizational change, or someone who does, and someone to help champion the cause will be key to getting traction.
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1 reply by Mike Frenette
Mar 13, 2025 8:51 PM
Mike Frenette
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Organizational change management that executives will fully understand aimed at achieving expected benefits and appointmenting benefits owners. Crucial!
Saving Changes...
Thomas KishPlant Project Engineer| Volvo Cars CharlestonGoose Creek, Sc, United States
Developing the proper KPIs and tracking. Saving Changes...
Mike FrenetteManager, IT PMO| Halifax Water (retired)Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Mar 12, 2025 12:59 PM
Replying to Bharatkumar Unercat
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To ensure expected project benefits are realized, start by clearly defining and prioritizing benefits with measurable outcomes and aligning them with organizational goals. Develop a Benefits Realization Plan with assigned accountability and track progress using metrics and tools like dashboards. Integrate benefits management throughout the project lifecycle and conduct Post-Implementation Reviews to assess outcomes and address gaps. Regularly adapt plans to evolving needs, foster collaboration across stakeholders, and promote a culture of accountability and transparency to sustain benefits over time.
It's that culture of accountability that is the rub. The PM cannot be responsible for a achieving the expected benefits, but the or she can have a business benefits owner appointed who will take accountability. And they can arrange checkpoint meetings as part of project planning even though they're not part of the project. I way to help this succeed is to ensure that the benefits owners are also the ones who benefit from the use of the products of the project. Making benefits ownership highly visible to the executive team is a great way to make sure that the benefits realization meetings are scheduled after the project and happen. Saving Changes...
Mike FrenetteManager, IT PMO| Halifax Water (retired)Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Mar 12, 2025 4:43 PM
Replying to Eric Simms
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I've informally done this by maintaining contact with the major project stakeholders; for example, I'd occasionally ask them if the delivered product was meeting their needs. However, there should be a formal way to ensure a completed project delivers its expected benefits.
Exactly! You can make it formal by appointing benefits owners who are bought in to achieving the business value through the use of the products of the project. Saving Changes...
Mike FrenetteManager, IT PMO| Halifax Water (retired)Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Mar 12, 2025 6:42 PM
Replying to Francisco Herrera
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Hi Mike, In my experience, one year after project completion, we do a review to measure the results. This helps us see if we hit the mark. We track key metrics and compare them to the original goals. It's important to see if the project really delivered the benefits we expected. I hope this help, Regards! Francisco.
Those key metrics are important and can be developed from the business case used to justify the project. It always amazes me when projects are justified based on business cases and then never get revisited! Benefits owners who are part of the business, not only the project, are key. Saving Changes...
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