How to Make it Work

Effective communication is at the heart of benefit realisation.  Stakeholders need help with the unambiguous expression of their benefit needs in ways that project staff can understand.  This aids clear discussions around feasibility.  The objective is ‘no surprises’.

What is a Benefit?

We define a benefit as “some improvement in performance of value to a stakeholder”.

• Without a stakeholder, you have no benefit.
• Without an improvement you have no benefit.

If an improvement can be perceived through any of our senses or as a perception, then it can be quantified.  At first people generally find it difficult to quantify because they haven’t learnt how to envision outcomes in performance improvement terms.  Our techniques centre on the definition of performance dimensions which are simply means to communicate effectively using numbers.

Sensible Measurement

With a common understanding of benefits and quantification, cost effective measurement processes can be designed to provide credible numbers.  As a guideline we advise that no more than 1% of your investment budget should be spent on measurement.  Knowing the benefit performance dimensions, targets can be set to meet real business needs.  Solutions can be evaluated for their impact on targets and cost, i.e. identifying ‘bang for buck’.