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Both the OGC’s “Managing Successful Programmes” (MSP) approach and Value Delivery Management™ (VDM) are focused on ‘benefits’ the two approaches have different definitions of what a benefit is and different ways of ensuring they are delivered. Not surprising, we find VDM’s much easier, clearer and practical.

BENEFITS AND OUTCOMES

MSP has two key points of measurement – the delivery of project outputs and business benefits.

Note that the word missing is ‘outcomes’. In MSP ‘outcomes’ exist as the half way house between the project delivered capabilities and the business benefits – but are not a primary focus. They are a means to an end – the realization of the benefits. This can make fuzzy the points of handover between the program and the business, as the program is delivering ‘capabilities’ – yet another intermediate element.

Delivery of the benefits is deemed to prove that the outcomes have been delivered – so, the benefits measurement process is also the outcomes achievement measurement process, and hence the primary MSP focus on benefits realization measurement, not outcomes delivery measurement.

MSP’s definition of benefits is what VDM usually refers to as ‘value’ – the quantified value of a benefit. However, financial values are the least stable element of the overall Value Equation™ and therefore not a good basis for measuring delivery ‘success’.

This strong value/benefits-focused thinking fundamentally changes the dynamics of benefits delivery.

MSP uses an measurement process whereby processes need to be put in place to measure the eventual output – the benefits. Then, once a benefit has been achieved, the outcome is assumed to have been achieved, so work on this benefit’s realization is stopped and any remaining, undelivered real potential value is foregone.

This outcome delivery assumption is dangerous as MSP appears to have no formal mechanism for tracking the financial benefits’ value drivers. As a result, a benefit’s value can be achieved through changes in external factors alone (eg a change in exchange rates) allowing ‘success’ to be claimed without the project delivering any of its proposed or available value. Alternatively, no longer existent value may be pursued and, when not delivered, the program be seen to have failed.

VDM takes the opposite approach and measures the inputs to a benefit’s realization — progressively measuring the delivery of the project changes, the project outcomes, the business changes, the business outcomes and then the benefits and their value – while, simultaneously, tracking any changes to the financial benefits’ value to ensure the full available financial value is known at any time.

VDM’s ‘input’ measurement approach makes it easy to see at any time exactly where you are in terms of your progress towards realizing your benefits and their value. Importantly it also embeds the benefits realization process into the project/program as the program’s progress is also measurable progress towards the delivery of the benefits – no separate, parallel stream of activities or reporting.