How Do You Know Your Change Program Benefits Have Been Achieved?

1. Introduction

1.1 Background - see above.

1.2 What is a benefit?
A benefit is an outcome or change, which results in a positive improvement to a person or an organisation. It needs to add value to the business (otherwise why do it) and should be expressed in words that indicate some form of change e.g. reduced, improved, better.

1.3 So what is Benefits Realisation Management?
Benefits realisation management is a process, which if followed, will increase the likelihood that desired benefits are actually achieved.

1.4 Why bother managing benefits?
Many change programmes fail to deliver the required benefits listed in the business case. This is mainly because the benefits are thought about at the very beginning and used as a lever to kick-start the project. Thereafter they are lost in the frenetic project development activity – the project implements, the new service or system is handed over to the operational areas and the project team skip off into the sunset with another successful delivery under their belts. But if the benefits are not identified, owned and measured, how do we know the project has been successful?
Benefits realisation management ensures that the implemented changes achieve the expected results by translating business objectives or outcomes into identifiable, measurable benefits that can then be systematically tracked.

1.5 What happens if benefits are not managed?
Without benefits realisation management the organisation may face the following risks:
- The failure of business areas to commit to the benefits.
- Required changes in business and working methods lack focus.
- Unrealistic benefits are claimed in terms of scope and value.
- Benefits are difficult to realise, with uncertainty of delivery.
- Achievements are not tracked or recorded.
- The business fails to deliver the benefits sought from the investment.
- There is a lack of quantifiable data against which to measure performance.
- There is no clear linkage between business case, outcomes and performance measurement & management.

2. Benefits Realisation Management Process
There are many methods, tools and templates in the market place that can be used to manage benefits. However, before making any purchase there needs to be an understanding of the process lifecycle in order to ensure that the business can articulate the requirement.

2.1 Step 1 – Identify outcomes & objectives
Identified outcomes and objectives need to be:v - Clear and unambiguous.
- Support business outcomes & objectives, derived from the corporate vision and strategy.
- Agreed with senior management and relevant stakeholders.

2.2 Step 2 – Identify enablers and benefits
Benefits do not normally happen in isolation. The realisation of some benefits will be dependent on other activities or projects, organisational change or the realisation of other benefits. It is important that these dependencies are recognised, identified, documented and monitored. One way of achieving this is to create a benefits dependency network – this lists all the benefits and maps them against dependencies, it also identifies potential negative benefits (that could potentially harm the business), which can then be managed as risks.

2.3 Step 3 - Identify benefits and owners
This step identifies the key benefits to be measured, which normally fall into 3 categories:
- Hard financial benefits – these can be measured in monetary terms – e.g. reduced costs or a % decrease in costs (over a stated time period).
- Hard non-financial benefits – these can be measured in performance terms – e.g. reduced supply-chain times in days or % increase in productivity.
- Soft Benefits - these are difficult to quantify or measure but could include, for example, improved staff morale or improved team working.
Setting the measurement is important. There may be one clear measure that can be used to determine benefits realisation. Alternatively, a number of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) may be needed.