Performance Improvement through Benefits Management

Performance improvements need to be measured on business outcomes and benefits basis, not just project outputs. A clear definition of business benefits and monitoring of those benefits is essential. The Performance Improvement through Benefits Management Methodology ensures that benefits realisation processes become an integral part of the organisational activities, and that they remain in place after project completion.

Business process change traditionally focuses on the three dimensions of:

• Cost – decreasing process costs
• Quality – improving customer service levels
• Time – decreasing time cycles.

The other dimensions we focus on to ensure the success of business process change are:

• Benefits – quantifying, costing, assigning, monitoring, measuring and realising the planned benefits from changes to a business process, and then implementing continuous improvement tasks to ensure ongoing refinement and measurement of the process
• Ownership – defining responsibilities for all aspects of daily operation, execution, performance and quality of the business process
• Risks – reducing the business process risk by incorporating proper controls.

Benefits realisation management is enabled through:

• Ensuring that the organisation's change initiative is supported throughout by a robust business case for change
• Focusing on business outcomes from the inception of the change initiative and how they will be achieved and measured
• Incorporating comprehensive project, benefits, change and transition management activities throughout the change initiative
• Matching the use of appropriate cost/benefit techniques to the desired business outcomes.

Maximising the benefits realisation timeframe window

Generally, there is a relatively short timeframe (less than nine months) to ensure that the project benefits are captured and are integrated as a permanent part of an organisation's day-to-day activities. Maximising the business benefits timeframe window of opportunity can be achieved through:

• Early focus on benefits realisation tasks during the project execution
• Focus on benefits achievement through the creation of a Benefits Realisation Project Office for the post-implementation phase
• Segmenting large complex projects into more manageable component projects.