Recently I was running a workshop for new project managers. The discussion was about project benefits and who would be likely to ‘receive’ the benefits of the projects they were working on.    Some did not know who or which groups were likely to receive benefits, but after some thought they managed to identify the benefit owners.

Benefits are determined at the outset of a project through the creation and definition of a benefits realisation strategy. During the early phases of a project, this high level view of the benefits should be one of the deciding factors for governance boards to make a decision on ‘go’ or ‘no go’ for the project. 

So, what should a benefit owner do – what is their role?

The benefit owner may be more than one person, it could be a group or even as wide as the general public. Think about a new public pathway or civic amenity. However, for clarity in this article I will refer to a group within an organisation e.g. the sales team or the operational team.

The benefit owner should work closely with the project manager and sponsor to identify, track and document benefits aligned with the strategic goals of the project. They should also ensure that the measurement methods are in place and that the measurement and analysis occurs from the start of the delivery phase of the project. Sounds easy, right? What could go wrong?

Some projects have the benefits identification piece missing, some have it so poorly worded that it would be hard to track or create a measurement criteria. Some mistake the deliverable for the benefits. So here’s some tips for your project start up phase:

1. Extrapolate from the problem statement, what the benefits of the project will be.
2. Get agreement that those are the benefits.
3. Set some criteria that will be used for measurement. How will you know that your project deliverables actually will lead to a benefit or benefits? Note that the benefit may be some time in the future e.g. 1 year or 2 years so the measures need to be workable in the long run.
4. Decide who will be the benefit owner and get their agreement.
5. Take a baseline now, before starting the project, of the measurement. For example if you want to improve client satisfaction, what is the current rating now and what do you expect to have as a result of putting all the project work in? Decide when you will get the benefits e.g. 6 months, 1 year etc.
6. Decide on a tracking method e.g. spreadsheet or dashboard. Decide on who needs to see the results – this is usually the governance board or senior leadership team.  Work out how often the reporting will be done.
7. Document all of this in a benefits realisation plan.
8. Get approval to start the project.

For more on benefits realisation, contact Carol at Carol@onedaytraining.co.nz