Benefits Management for Programmes, Projects,  and Projects, and Other Related Work

Benefits do not happen by themselves - they need careful planning, delicate management, and rigorous reporting. They need a midwife.

Just as a midwife should be involved before, during, and after the birth to ensure the health and well-being of both mother and baby, the benefits manager needs to be involved at key stages to ensure that benefits are both realistic and realised.

And here is a difference: the midwife is not usually present at conception. A benefits manager should be.

The previous articles in this series were about portfolio management. There is no such thing as a stand-alone project. Every project contributes to the direction of an organisation or alliance of organisations. If it does not – why are we doing it?

I recently joked that most projects happen because a salesperson wants to sell something; too many people in the room nodded and agreed with me. The benefits manager should change this dynamic. To begin at the beginning: benefits managers should be involved in designing and understanding the big driver for the project – the need or opportunity that it answers.

BS 202002 Clause 8.3 Define the need or opportunity.

Clause 8.3 of BS202002, and the first step of Figure 1, illustrate that the start point for benefits management is before the start of a typical project, before the options or business case. It should begin with the need, defined by the gap between current portfolio forecasted benefits and expected benefits, in combination with the organisation’s strategic objectives.

An example: if we want to improve school attendance, there will be a few differen...