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Benefits expansion
- 1. Benefits Expansion A universe of benefits from a single point
- 2. A small heresy We’re not in it for the benefits We’re in it for the strategy
- 3. Getting philosophical A benefit is a result that someone thinks is worthwhile This assumes that there isn’t something that can be called a ‘pre-benefit’. Any thoughts?
- 4. Naïve questions 1. What does ‘good’ look like? 2. What’s the point of this change? 3. Who is it really for? 4. What do they actually want? 5. How do we get this done? 6. What makes this option better than Plan B?
- 5. Objectives, of a sort Deliver ‘Something’, there are no defined benefits and the outcomes are indicators of the intangible ‘something’. Deliver ‘Good’, the benefits are evidence or proxies of some intangible ‘good’. Deliver the Shopping List. In this case the benefits and objective are the same thing. Deliver Strategic Objectives, something big, important and probably intangible.
- 6. The Inception Benefit Nothing is a benefit until someone chooses to make it so The Inception Benefit kicks everything off
- 7. Expansion
- 8. What we do Benefits Management is the best application of scarce resources to select and deliver appropriate benefits to identified stakeholders
- 9. Discussion
Editor's Notes
- How do benefits grow from a single point of project inception? How can we manage them as they grow? I think formal ownership of benefits is a problem. It certainly is at the start and while the business case is being written. In many cases it remains so throughout the programme.
- Benefits Management supports better delivery of strategy. Concentration on benefits is better than what we had before. But it’s only part of the story. Now we’ve got an emphasis on benefits that may not be strategic. Lots of piecemeal rewards that don’t add up to a strategic whole. Why is this so? What can we do about it?
- Getting philosophical The failure of so many projects could be due in part to the fact that we have a poor understanding of what defines success in the first place. We say that Project X failed because it didn’t deliver any benefits. I’m going to take the stance here that all projects do deliver benefits. The problem is that too often they are poor benefits for the wrong people. A benefit is a result that someone thinks is worthwhile I’m going to talk about how the someone, the result and the worthwhileness all change over time. If I’ve missed something and there’s a clear pre-cursor to a benefit that has it’s own definition then the rest of this talk is going to go downhill fast.
- I’ve been floating these around for a while. Naïve questions 1. How do you know you are doing a better job this week than you did last week? All in a context of knowing what good looks like, what are the KPIs? 2. What’s the point of this project? Can you summarise it in a way that’s quickly and easily understood? Let’s start, as all good benefits-led changes ought, with the end in mind. Objectives and benefits, how do they differ? How much should they differ? Which one is the end we should keep most in mind? To start with, there isn’t that much difference between them. 3. Who is it really for? 4. What do they actually want? 5. How do we get this done? 6. What makes this option better than Plan B?
- Every objective, however perverse, has a purpose that satisfies a stakeholder. There has to be something in it for someone. There are four crude types of objective Objective 1 – Deliver ‘Something’, there are no defined benefits and the outcomes are indicators of the intangible ‘something’. This could be appropriate when the project is to meet mandatory obligations or obey instructions from above. Or it could just be an example of poor objective setting. An example is eDischarge summaries from A&E, mandated in the NHS Standard Contract with no stated purpose. Objective 2 – Deliver ‘Good’, the benefits are evidence or proxies of some intangible ‘good’. This is “Deliver the Vision” or “Deliver disruptive change”. Objective 3 –Deliver the Shopping List, in this case the benefits and objective are the same thing. This isn’t so much the General’s campaign map, more the Quartermasters’ requisitions for kit. Objective 4 – Deliver Strategic Objectives, something big, important and probably intangible, like meeting a Vision or Mission statement. The Benefits are evidence of action that contributes to the strategy. By separating out the benefits we affect the approach to objective setting. If we talk first of benefits then we create or amend the strategy, not necessarily in a good way. We may end up with a shopping list and lose our Vision.
- A result that a stakeholder perceives to be worthwhile Assuming that a benefit is a result that someone thinks is worthwhile leads us to thinking about who that someone is and what they perceive as being valuable. Nothing is a benefit until someone chooses to make it so Who’s the someone in this case? This project will initially have one benefit recipient – whoever starts and controls the project. For the sake of a name let’s call them the sponsor. They are also the benefit owner. They will be responsible for realising the benefit they wish to receive. The Inception Benefit Any change initiative starts with an end in mind. The question is, how good an end is it (for an as yet un-decided definition of ‘good’). Take our basic definition that a benefit is a result that a stakeholder perceives to be worthwhile. That initial decision to make a change gives us our first benefit. The inception benefit is, “I, the sponsor, will achieve my desired ends.” It sounds vague and weak because at the very inception of the change it will be. This is a case of, “I’d like to do…” New ideas rarely come into the world fully-formed. That’s the Big Bang from which our universe of benefits will expand. It’s what it expands into that’s the tricky part.
- Expansion – Agile iterative benefits The development of benefits will take place within the development of the project. This is a very fluid environment. People and resources will come and go, the world moves on. Influence works both ways. We don’t have to react to change, we can make change. So what’s going to change that we need to worry about? Control and governance will develop as the project grows. The actual person / group who acts as sponsor may change as the project develops. The junior staff member who has the initial creative idea won’t end up leading the corporate transformation programme. There may be a formal handover of control. The project grows so accountability and responsibility move up the corporate hierarchy. More and bigger stakeholders get involved and the balance of power shifts. The Sponsor becomes a steward, acting on behalf of others. “Who’s it really for?” is one of the five naïve questions we should ask of any project. We have to keep asking it because the answer is likely to keep on changing, at least in the early stages. If we want to influence things then the follow-up question ought to be, “Who should it really be for?” Success requires the right stakeholders taking the right part. Expansion from a single sponsor to an appropriate governance structure of stakeholders. The other naïve question that goes with it is, “What do they actually want?” This is where the definition of ‘good’ plays its part. Do they want the right things, is value being optimised, is it all fair? The Hot Potato The number of benefits grows. Presumably the number of recipients does as well. What about the owners? Each benefit has to have an owner. The benefit profile form has a space for Benefit Owner. Until it’s filled in the benefit shouldn’t be valid. Benefit ownership can be summed up as, “I want this and will see that it happens.” If no-one will see that it happens then it won’t happen. The benefit ceases to exist. So benefit ownership is like a hot potato, someone always ends up holding it. Until responsibility can be handed off then it sits with the last person who wanted it. In other words, there has to be a default owner of every ‘live’ benefit. So, instead of leaving a blank space on the Benefit Profile form for the Owner’s name to be put in at a later date, should all profiles have the Sponsor as the default owner until someone takes the role from them? And should they be pursued for the benefit until they can dump it on someone else? The inception benefit is owned by the sponsor. Each new benefit that it expands into is owned by the sponsor until it is accepted by someone else. And so it cascades, they own their new benefits until handed over. What shouldn’t happen is a project full of benefits to satisfy its project board and fill its business case, all ‘owned’ by the project manager with no-one in the business who will take them.
- We work in an inefficient market of opinion and negotiation with few players and few direct payments for the exchange of goods and services. Added value isn’t bought with money at a market rate. Benefits Management is the best application of scarce resources to select and deliver appropriate benefits to identified stakeholders It complements leadership. The leader(s) lead the stakeholders through Expansion to a successful end. We provide our subject matter expertise to help them. Therefore BM is a method to support them to deliver ‘good’ benefits. Choosing appropriate recipients Choosing appropriate benefits Taking ownership of the realisation of benefits