This document discusses benefits realization management and outlines some key challenges and best practices. It notes that benefits realization is one of the most difficult practices to embed in organizations and that $96 million is wasted for every $1 billion invested in projects. It emphasizes that projects are investments that stakeholders expect returns from. The document discusses timing of benefits realization, communicating wider benefits beyond just financial returns, understanding stakeholder needs, mapping benefits, and ensuring the right benefits are targeted to avoid unintended consequences.

1. Benefits Realisation Management
Kenn Dolan
SWWE APM Benefits Seminar
12 March 2019

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3. Pulse of the Profession
• Benefits Realisation Management is one of the most
difficult practices to embed in an organisation
• For every $1b invested in projects, $96m is wasted
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4. Projects as Investments
• A Program or Project is an INVESTMENT!
• The Sponsor and stakeholders are committing resources
• They expect something in return
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5. Timing…
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Cost 1400%
Time 10 years late
Quality Inside
Out
Hall and Utzon
Social Asset Value $6.2b
Visitors 10.9m
Economic $1.2b
Revaluing Our Icon (2018)
Deloitte

6. Lost Benefits –due to lag

7. Lost Benefits – due to ramping

8. Iron Triangle of Megaprojects - Flyvbjerg
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Megaprojects are “over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again”.
Very rarely do people stop and look back and assess, “Did we actually get the benefits that we
set out to get from this project?” and then study whether it is the case or not. It would be lovely to
have. I think it would be good decision making. It would also be wonderful for us scholars to have
data like that but I have to say that, unfortunately, it does not happen very often.
Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee Oral evidence: The Government’s Management of
Major Projects, HC 1631 Monday 26 November 2018 Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on
26 November 2018. Watch the meeting Members present: Sir Bernard Jenkin (Chair); Ronnie Cowan; Dame
Cheryl Gillan; Kelvin Hopkins; Mr David Jones.

9. And there’s more….
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“…there are instances and we study everything we can find to see what the benefits are. We do have data
on that in addition to the cost and schedule data. There are projects that come in greatly over benefits. They
generate benefits way above what was predicted….It is not the typical situation but it does happen. There
are projects that are on benefits and there are projects that are under benefits. There is a lot of variation.
That is one thing. The predictions are very uncertain regarding benefits.
There is also the thing called wider benefits, not just the narrow benefits of immediate cost and benefits of a
project but wider benefits to employment, that generate employment, development in the region where it is
built and so on....One of the leading authorities in the world on that is right here in the UK at the University
of Kent, Professor Roger Vickerman. He found that on average the wider benefits are 10% of the benefits of
major projects and, again, it can vary a lot. Wider benefits are often exaggerated, according to Vickerman,
in the sense that people use them to justify projects that cannot be justified on the narrow benefits.”

10. Triple Constraints
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Scope
Cost Time
People

11. Communicating Better
• Wider and External Benefits
• Is it only about the money?
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12. Forth Crossings
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13. Wind Shields
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14. Levels of Benefits
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15. Benefits Life-Cycle
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16. Understand your Stakeholders - PESTLE
• Political—Internal, local, national, and regional politics may provide the driving force
required to initiate an investment.
• Economic—the cost of borrowing or exchange rates may influence the viability of some
projects. High unemployment may make some key skills available, or less expensive, which
could lead to increased investment within an organization or region.
• Social—Aging populations may be a concern to a government, making one of the desired
benefits from a program the increased employment of people over the age of 55.
• Technological—The availability of new technology at reasonable cost may enable projects
which were not previously viable.
• Legal—Investments driven by legislation are often compliance-related or arise from the
opportunities created by the introduction of new legislation, such as changing planning
regulations.
• Environmental—An organisation may decide to change its processes and material
resources to ones which are less damaging to the environment.
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17. Understand your Stakeholders - TBL
• Economic—Representing the financial aspects of reporting,
including the investment value and its comparison with
financial returns
• Social—Covering social aspects of the investment which will
be valued within the community, such as greater diversity, a
safer community, or a more liveable city
• Environmental—Addressing benefits which are related to
contributions to environmental impact, such as pollutant
emissions, noise reduction, and reduced salinity of river
water.
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18. Begin with the end in mind…
• What do we want to achieve?
BEFORE
• What do we want to do?

19. Example of Benefits Map

20. Edward W Morrow – Industrial Megaprojects

21. Timeline for Actions

22. The RIGHT Benefits
• “Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the
right things” (Drucker, 2001).
• Productivity = (Value of Outputs)/Costs
• Any initiative aimed at improving productivity could address:
– Reducing costs while maintaining outputs at the current level
– Increasing outputs while maintaining costs at the current level
– Increasing costs and increasing outputs by a greater proportion than
the cost increase

23. Targeting the right benefits

24. Unintended Consequences
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• Horst Siebert
• Michael Vann – rats in Hanoi
• Indonesia 2016? – rats in
Jakarta

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26. kenndolan@outlook.com
www.linkedin.com/in/kenn-dolan-31ba33a/
www.crcpress.com/Implementing-Project-and-Program-Benefit-Management/Dolan/p/book/9781498786393
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