Detailed research into projects and their failure to deliver value has found that there are two root causes

1. poor business cases — that leave 25%+ of the potential value ‘on the table’ and
2. poor or missing benefits management — that does not adequately track and measure the realization of the benefits.

Some radical improvement is needed in both areas.

First you need to make sure you’re focused on delivering the correct desired business outcomes. Most projects skip this step and immediately forego some of their benefits. Then you need to make sure you’ve identified ALL of the benefits possible from your project. Most projects under-identify the benefits and then struggle to justify their investment. Then you need to quantify these benefits in a way that allows you to track and measure their value throughout the project and through to realization, tracking any variances along the way.

And, of course, you need to deliver them and measure their realization. It all sounds so obvious that it is surprising that 70% of organizations don’t have any real benefits management and measurement process. This can be easily addressed. The “Defining the Project Value” series of Guides enables you to establish and run an effective benefits management program to maximize the actual value realized in your organization — the basic goal of all projects!

The following Guides enable you to define, track and measure your project’s benefits.