How to Develop End-to-End Benefits Realisation Process

In the business dictionary, there are three definitions of the word “benefit”. The first definition is “advantage, privilege, right or financial reimbursement”, the second is “desirable and measurable outcome or result from an action, investment, project, resource, or technology”, the last is “desirable attribute of a good or service, which a customer perceives he or she will get from purchasing. Whereas vendors sell features, buyers seek the benefit”.

According to the Project Management Institute (PMI)¹, “Projects are a key way to create value and benefits in organisations”. Furthermore, the PMI stated that “successful business value realisation begins with comprehensive strategic planning and management” and continued “In order to bridge the gap between organisational strategy and successful business value realisation, the use of portfolio, programme, and project management techniques is essential.” in the “A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge”.²

The primary aim of this article is to develop end-to-end benefits realisation process through integrating portfolio management with programme and project management. In order to achieve this, the author conducted deep research about benefit management based on PMI’s perspective and will explain them in the background section. Then, the relationship between portfolio management, programme management and project management will be developed and a new end-to-end benefits realisation process will be proposed.

Introduction

In the last few decades, the awareness of benefits realisation has increased. Ginger Levin argued that “although much has been written on benefits realisation since the 1980s, primarily regarding return on investment in the information systems field, it began to be discussed in the project management field in the 1990s in...