Benefits Management

About Project Management – Benefits Management

Benefits Management is the process of ensuring that procedures are in place to identify, deliver and take full advantage of the capability provided by the project output. It is a continuous process running throughout the life of the product.

What is a benefit?

A benefit may best be described as a gain (measureable) from an investment.

However, everything we do in life has side-effects and consequences and delivering new capability into an organization is no different. Therefore in addition to those we planned to achieve, we may realize other benefits or even dis-benefits, which are probably best described as … a result of change that is perceived to be negative rather than positive.

Benefits may also be referred to as cashable and non-cashable.

Proactive management of benefits can help to identify potentially ineffective projects as well as help to realize early and sustained benefits which can, in long or complex projects, keep stakeholders engaged and motivated.

Summary of the Management of Benefits in Projects

Benefits should be profiled to give their description, an indication of how they will be observed, what the new capability is that will enable their realization and how (and when) they will be measured.

How does the benefit help deliver strategic objectives? Who will be responsible to monitor and deliver the benefit? What are the dependencies between different benefits?

These are just a few of the questions that a Benefits matrix will help us to answer.