Question and Answers from - A benefits management framework for prioritising programmes webinar Monday 17 February 2020 presented by: Dr Hugo Minney The link to the write up page and resources of this webinar: https://www.apm.org.uk/news/a-benefits-management-framework-for-prioritising-programmes-webinar/ This supports the APM publication “A guide to using a benefits management framework” and takes participants through the implementation process: https://www.apm.org.uk/book-shop/a-guide-to-using-a-benefits-management-framework/ Presentation slides: https://www.slideshare.net/assocpm/a-benefits-management-framework-for-prioritising-programmes-webinar-17-february-2020

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A benefits management framework for prioritising programmes
Questions and Answers
Hugo Minney I Monday 17 February 2020 I http://bit.ly/APMBMF_Webinar
Q1. I have always used Visio for creating benefits maps (which has its limitations). Are
there any other software/apps you could recommend that automate/automatically link
project/programme benefits maps to portfolio and/or organisation-level benefits maps,
i.e. where a change in one map would be reflected in all related ones?
Q1 (2). Which tools have you used to identify and track benefits... Excel, Wovex etc?
A1. Excel and Visio, like all Microsoft tools, are starter packs with a lot of flexibility. If you
want to do accounts, or engineering, or mathematical modelling, or benefits, then you can
start with Excel but once you get serious then you need a better solution. Excel will get you
started until you know what you want. You wouldn't rely on Visio for a construction plan or
BIM.
In terms of specialist benefits management tools, I list four of them on page 72 of the
"Guide", all of which are capable in general terms and certainly better than Excel for this
specialist task.
Benefits mapping is an important first step, a visual way to understand the dependencies
and impacts (see Question below on Benefits Mapping). However, it is only a first step. In
order to make decisions you need to know dates and quantities (because you are investing
dates and quantities and making decisions about dates and quantities). When you use Visio
for the map, you need to put the definitions into Word, the dates and quantities into Excel,
and pretty soon you have a nightmare trying to keep them all up to date and in sync with
each other.
If external conditions change (e.g. goals or enablers), then in Visio you can instantly see on
the map which benefits are affected, but you have to switch to other Microsoft products to
make the updates. In a specialist tool (the one I use the most is Amplify™), you identify an
affected benefit and open its dashboard to make the relevant changes to quantities and
dates. These then roll up from individual item (initiative, benefit, goal) through to other
items on the map and up through programmes and portfolios.
You don’t want to add together dissimilar units - a %age added to £10million won’t show at
all. You want to add together benefits that can be added together, e.g. GBP (£) with GBP
(£), time saved (weeks) with time saved (weeks). In a specialist tool, the numbers do roll up
automatically - that's why I emphasise the use of common currencies, so that numbers in
similar units can be added together.
Are there any tools out there that are sophisticated enough to automatically manage a
"map of maps" (portfolio level map-type summaries of programme-level maps such as those

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illustrated in Fig 2.1 on page 14 of the "guide")? The Amplify™ software does provide a map
linking feature between maps at different levels within the Initiative Hierarchy. Amplify™
can be configured to support the use of different mapping techniques, e.g. a Transformation
Strategy Map, at the highest level and an MSP Map at the programme-level. The same
object can then appear on the different map types ensuring that the data that behind each
object remains in sync. Other software may do something similar - however that is outside
my experience.
Q2. In light of HS2 where non-informed people did the BM - how can we prove we have
got it right part way through a project?
A2. Benefits management, and especially a benefits management framework, will almost
never be applied to a green field environment. It needs to be flexible and comprehensive
enough to apply to projects/ programmes that are near closure, in-flight, just starting, going
through business case, as well as the green field "we've identified a problem" (See answer
below (A6) about Investment Logic Mapping to define the problem).
The ‘BRM Guide’ discusses this in sections 5.4 and 5.5 pages 55-58. Yes, it is sensible to
check where you are, part way through a project. But be honest - when you do your
assessment, have you really got it right or not? (this is not a comment on HS2, just on
projects in general). Your benefits assessment may reveal that it's time to cut your losses!
Q3. Does the ‘BRM guide’ explain/provide guidance about how to measure qualitative
benefits? Q3 (2) Do benefits need to equal economic value - what is your experience?
A3. The ‘BRM Guide’ is a guide to benefits management FRAMEWORKS, not to general
benefits management. There are a lot of books on benefits management out there,
although APM's Benefits and Value SIG has also created an e-Learning course (available on
APM Learning).
The ‘BRM Guide’ emphasises that there are different benefits, although a much better
introduction to non-financial benefits is given in another of my APM publications, ‘Social
Return on Investment (SROI): a powerful tool for the realisation of benefits’. Note that SROI
is now called Social Value (the regulatory body actually changed its name).
All benefits can be measured (quantified). However sometimes the way you quantify them
can be more effort than its worth, which is why some benefits are ‘measured’ as qualitative
(either observed or not observed, or subjectively valued as High/ Medium/ Low).
Benefits are relevant to each stakeholder, and to their objectives. A customer-focused
organisation wants to know about customer satisfaction, because this impacts on customer
retention, spend per order and number of orders per month. ‘No defects’ or quality are
measurable. A healthcare organisation might use Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs),
although these are given a fluid value because of the question that they are the answer to,
which can put people off using QALYs.

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A university wants to use Academic Ranking (a lag measure, but it can be calculated by using
lead measures such as numbers of publications, citations, international funding, etc),
because this affects present and future income from students and income from government
and awarding bodies. A Civil Nuclear site wants to use Reduced Risk and Hazard. So, there
are many ways other than economic to report benefits, and they are crucial to the strategic
objectives of the organisation but also completely understandable to outside stakeholders.
We see a lot in the papers at the moment about Triple Bottom Line
(https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/triple-bottom-line.asp), and rightly so. It’s only recently
that we’ve focused on money instead of recognising a wider range of success measures, and it
makes sense to go back to these. Customer satisfaction is a proxy for future survival as an
organisation, and public sector and arms-length bodies should be all about customer satisfaction,
whether that customer is the minister or the general population..
As an organisation's benefits management capability matures, most organisations develop
more and more non-economic benefits in addition to the basic economic ones. But it does
take experience and maturity.
Q4. How far do you go to identify and measure benefits for a project or programme, at
what point does it become an unsustainable overhead?
A4. As I emphasised in the webinar, everything can be measured (one of my contributions to
the Global Value Exchange GVE is a ‘£’ figure for the amount parents love their children) but
that doesn't mean that you should measure everything. If what you are trying to measure is
very difficult to measure, but the project or programme is a huge investment, then it may
still be worth going through the cost of finding a way to measure it. Risk and Hazard for the
civil nuclear industry is so important to the overall mission that it falls into this category,
even though it is horrendously difficult to report in a way that helps directors make practical
decisions.
In the course of searching, you may find it wasn't as difficult as you thought. For example, I
ask front-line staff what they think it is important to know. Because they were involved in
the decision, they take pride in entering the information accurately because they want to
see the results. Because they are motivated, it costs almost nothing to measure. And the
clarity of measures and of reporting drives good behaviours, including better service
delivery (BAU), small improvements instead of a big divergence from good practice until a
major (and disruptive) improvement project is needed, and pride.
Q5. Where would you put NPV in the mix? My experience is of economic value being a key
metric for decision making and looking at sources of value?
A5. NPV is a straightforward calculation that adjusts past and future numbers for inflation
(technically HM Treasury Green Book advice is to not adjust past numbers). Future numbers
are adjusted by 3.5% per year. However, this only becomes important for longer periods of
time - if your business case relies on 7% (over 2 years) or 10% (over 3 years) then taking

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account of risk, your business case is weak. Having said that, it's straightforward to
calculate. Treasury Green Book 2018 has changed all references to NPV into references to
NPSV - Net Present Social Value, although the calculation and factor remains the same.
If you want to be more accurate, there's a calculator on Global Value Exchange which allows
you to specify a particular aspect of society (for example, inflation in technology has gone
the opposite way to inflation on houses, which are extremes compared to Consumer Price
Index), start year and end year and get all the factors taken account of. One of my own GVE
contributions.
Q6. Benefits mapping is often seen as initiatives on the left mapped to benefits on the
right with the arrows pointing towards the benefits, wouldn't it be better to start with the
benefits and then use that to work out what initiatives we need to realise them?
A6. You have hit the nail on the head with this one: the first step in benefits management is
to identify the objectives, then the benefits, therefore the outcomes or end-state needed to
realise these benefits. So, you work from right to left, and reach the initiatives (what you
do) in order to achieve those objectives. Once you have initiatives, it's useful to work back
to the right to see if the initiatives lead to the outcomes, the outcomes lead to the benefits,
and the benefits will realise your objectives - it's easy to find you end up with a totally
different set of benefits and results from the ones you wanted! If this happens, then don't
throw good money after bad - do it (from right to left) again to identify a new set of
initiatives!
There's an alternative approach, a left-to-right one, using Investment Logic Mapping. I
cover this in a recent article entitled ‘Why map benefits? And other uses for a Benefits
Dependency Map.’ This (ILM) actually starts earlier than starting with objectives, as it starts
with defining the problem. But because it works from left to right, you are less likely to end
up in the trap of concluding that you were correct when you run through the benefits map
from left to right to confirm your right to left thinking. You prepare the ILM from left to
right to come up with your initiatives, then you start again on a new wall, and put your
initiatives on the traditional benefits map and work through to see if you can satisfy the
objectives you first thought of. And I still believe it’s best to do Benefits Mapping in a group
setting on a wall with sticky-notes, and only transfer to the computer once you’ve
completed it.
Q7. In terms of the questions on the roles (the audience questions), what split, and
distribution of roles, do you expect per group e.g. exposure to BM, etc.
A7. We didn't have a pre-conception on this question because it depends on who joins the
webinar, rather than on how many there are of each role out there in the business. I don't
think there's a right or wrong answer, just like there isn't a single right answer for Team
Roles or Myers-Briggs or any number of other team roles assessments.

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Typically you expect one sponsor or SPA (Single point of accountability) per programme, one
Benefits Owner per benefit, although the sponsor may sponsor a number of programmes
and be benefits owner for benefits on lots of different programmes and a number of
different benefits in each programme. You may have a benefits manager dedicated to a
programme or portfolio although typically you will want a small team of highly specialist
benefits managers in the whole organisation, setting enterprise-wide standards and
resolving the benefits for each programme, then people in the programme team and
operations (business as usual) actually measuring and reporting the numbers.
Q8. ‘Common currencies’ were mentioned for measures, outside ‘£ / $’ what might these
be for the purposes of comparability? Q8 (2) Do you have any suggestions on how to
obtain data on environmental benefits?
A8. ‘Common Currencies’ are the metrics you use to report to your stakeholders; therefore,
they are whatever are most relevant to your most important stakeholders. I'd like to
suggest that four main ‘currencies’ (Money in the accounts, contribution to the local
community, effectiveness or quality, satisfaction or reputation - a 2*2 grid of
internal<>external:: people<>process) would be ideal, but common currencies are for
communication so you need currencies that are relevant to your organisation.
People
ExternalInternal
Process
Money
RoI
Effectiveness
Quality
Satisfaction
Contribution
Reputation
As I mentioned, I'm currently working in civil nuclear. The key objectives are:
- return on taxpayer investment;
- contribution to the local economy;

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- reducing risk and hazard;
- re-greening the landscape.
Therefore, the common currencies will include these four, plus at least one other which is
‘bringing the mission earlier than baseline’ measured in years.
For environmental and community contribution measures particularly, there are some
widely accepted measures. HACT offers a spreadsheet of measures for community benefit,
including the cost to the community of graffiti or of fear of crime, for example
(https://www.hact.org.uk/value-calculator). The National Social Value Task Force has
developed a set of TOMs (Themes, Outcomes, Measures) which are used by all local
authorities, many government and public sector bodies, and many other organisations,
which are relevant to Quality of Life (https://www.nationalsocialvaluetaskforce.org/).
The United Nations uses Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)/ Strategic Environmental
Assessment (SEA) which Social Value has built on when developing its process
(https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/). There's a huge
source of benefits and measures available via the Global Value Exchange (accessible via
Social Value UK (http://www.socialvalueuk.org/)), although there are so many, and they are so
specific, this may be a rabbit hole you want to avoid.
Q9. We’re managing benefits using APM standard across a portfolio. I’ve been looking at
Management of Value (MoV) What do you think about bringing in MoV?
A9. I'm a standards person. I use existing standards right up to the point that they don't
work, and even then I would seek to retain most of the standard approach and only modify
the bit that needs improvement. I'll go further - novel approaches haven't been tested in
the heat of engagement and there's a significant risk if you rely on them.
So MoV, which has been tested in the white heat of delivery, is a very good way to approach
benefits and value. Obviously there are other tried-and-tested approaches, and they work
too. Which is better? The one which helps you to communicate with your stakeholders,
which is typically the industry standard for your sector.
A few years ago, Benefits Management SIG ran an ‘advanced benefits mapping’ workshop in
London, where we compared at least four different methods of benefits mapping. They all
work, some are better in specific circumstances, but they all work. And that's just for
benefits mapping!
Q10. How should assurance of a project look at benefit management? Is it appropriate to
include it as part of looking at the arrangement for the project solution?
A10. Benefits management needs assurance at least as much as any other part of project
management (P3M), and the most usual approach is to include benefits management into
the phase-gates (stage-gates, gateways, etc). In early phases, evidence of planning and that

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benefits/ disbenefits aren't missing is needed. In later phase gates, evidence of
measurement and decisions on the basis of benefits realisation will be needed.
This is another way that a framework adds a whole extra dimension (taking benefits
management in two dimensions up to a framework in three dimensions) and allows the
organisation to prioritise. Benefits management allows stop/go/decrease/increase
decisions.
The framework allows you to make these decisions in the context of allocating limited
resources. And in order to make decisions, you need to be able to compare like with like,
which means assurance that when someone says, ‘this is measured in hours and reported in
‘£’’, that is measured in jobs created and reported in ‘£’ the conversion to common currency
is true, and the comparisons are valid.