Intranet - The Benefits Realisation Plan
The Millennium Experience A successful project is one that delivers on-spec ('quality'), time and cost. Right? Well consider these two projects? The Millennium Dome was delivered on time for the 31 December 1999 and safely within a budget (fixed in 1998) of Ł289 million. The Project was also delivered to quality, albeit against a Specification that had been adjusted several times during the project to simplify the scope of work required (and ensure that time and cost deadlines could still be met). However, visitor number targets were greatly overestimated, the business a total flop and the whole endeavour deemed a failure by many. The Millennium Wheel (or "London Eye") opened one month late on a dreary February morning in 2000 (following problems raising the wheel and then safety & quality issues with one of the 32 pods). It was also over budget, with building costs of Ł70m (against the Ł25m British Airways had originally planned to spend). However, an average of about 10,000 people a day now ride the wheel, making the London Eye the UK's biggest tourist attraction (and generating Ł15 million of trading profit a year) - a healthy return on investment for the shareholders. A New Mindset for Change Projects Traditional methodologies for change / project management (of which PRINCE is an example) tend to focus primarily on time, cost and quality. Benefits are all too often only implicitly recognised and the accountability for realising them is assumed to lie outside the project. However, the pace of change within our society, industry and business grows ever faster. Somewhat paradoxically, there is an ever-greater need to ensure that changes 'stick' (delivering sustainable benefit and competitive advantage to the organisations making them). Most businesses have already achieved greater efficiency and effectiveness within single functions or processes; The challenge of the 21st Century is increasingly how to realise end-to-end change across a boundary-less business. Rarely (these days) will a single customer sponsor a single project, delivering a single system into a single department. The leadership challenge is thus how to engage multiple sponsors and change agents across the whole business to deliver excellence in change and the ruthless pursuit of business benefits and true return on investment (ROI). The Case for a focus on Benefits Management Recent research from the Cranfield University School of Management finds that 78% of IT-enabled change projects (in large UK companies) fail to deliver business benefits. 47% believed assessment of business benefits in business cases was poor or worse and 79% said that all the available benefits were not captured during that assessment. 45% believed benefits were overstated in their organisation to get investment approval. Arguably, this will only change when project managers and their people become accountable for ? and obsessed by - delivering business benefits and value through Change, rather than simply projects to time and cost. Benefits Defined Soft Benefits (sometime called "non-quantifiable" benefits) are those intangible improvements to be obtained from a change, including improved employee satisfaction, better customer satisfaction, increased knowledge sharing and re-use of intellectual capital. Whilst it is often accepted that such benefits do lead to financial gain, it is deemed impossible to demonstrate a proven causal link that would enable one to place a financial value on the benefit. Direct Benefits are those which lead to a measurable impact on the bottom-line of the organisation, including increased revenue, reduced costs of sale / improved margin, operating cost reduction (e.g. through reduced headcount) and improvements in working capital (e.g. through a faster debt collection cycle). An individual or team can be held directly to account for achieving them and providing evidence of their realisation. Indirect Benefits are those which facilitate or enable bottom-line impact, without leading directly to realisable items for which can individual or team had be held accountable. Such benefits include cost avoidance (i.e. costs not currently budgeted that might otherwise become payable) and capacity creation (where efficiency savings free up people to undertake high-value adding tasks but do lot lead directly to the release of FTEs or other costs). The Benefit Realisation Toolset In the Benefits Realisation & Tracking chapter of my (free to access) Intranet Portal Guide, I outline a number of tools that can be used to better manage benefits on the typical portal project. 1) An enhanced Business Case
Many business cases simply do not sufficiently reference Benefits. Make sure that you dedicate at least as many column-inches to benefits as you do to costs. Split benefits between soft, direct and indirect. Ensure that direct benefits are included in the ROI, NPV or IRR calculations and that the people who will be accountable for their realisation have signed them off. 2) The Benefits Blueprint
Create a document that shows how your benefits link to actual business process changes, projects or deliverables and changes to systems. Suitable tools can be found in Cranfield's Benefits Network approach, the Six Sigma toolset and as add-ons to PRINCE. Position the overall result in the context of your vision and strategy. This will help you capture all the benefits and to sharpen what you need to do to achieve them. 3) The Benefits Realisation Plan
The key control document, a good Realisation Plan includes, for each benefit, (a) a description of what the benefit is, (b) how much it is worth, (c) who will be accountable for it's realisation, (d) when it will be realised and (e) where it will impact. If there are risks or dependencies to the benefit realisation, these should be noted and managed in the plan. Finally, it should be clear in the plan how the benefit realisation will be objectively measured and evidenced (e.g. through the monitoring of key performance indicators). 4) Benefit Evidence
In my guide, I suggest the use of Benefit Sign-off sheets, whereby the benefit owner identified at the Business Case and Planning stage is expect to sign-off once she is satisfied that the benefit has been realised. Evidence supporting the sign-off should also be attached to the sign-off sheet. This is a good discipline, to keep everyone honest. Conclusions The 21st Century Project Manager needs to be obsessed with delivering business benefits and value through change, rather than simply projects to time, cost and quality. There are tools that can help, including in particular the Benefits Realisation Plan. Good luck and don't forget to check back with my guide for further help and templates you can download. About the author: David Viney (david@viney.com) is the author of the Intranet Portal Guide; 31 pages of advice, tools and downloads covering the period before, during and after an Intranet Portal implementation. Read the guide at http://www.viney.com/DFV/intranet_portal_guide or the Intranet Watch Blog at http://www.viney.com/intranet_watch.
Related News
|
 |
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
Is Your Website Credit Card Friendly?
In my last column I discussed the process of credit card enabling your brick-and-mortar business. I pointed out that research has shown that accepting credit cards can help increase revenue and enhance cash flow. I also pointed out that you may have to look beyond your local bank for help in getting things set up. This week we will look at setting up an online payment system for your business website. If you think hooking up a brick-and-mortar location with a credit card system stymies most bankers, try asking them how to do it on your website.
Choosing an Ecommerce Shopping Cart
Choosing an online shopping cart is a big decision. Unlike a traditional brick and mortar business, your website is your only chance to impress potential customers. It needs to project a professional image to capture the trust of your visitors. The shopping cart is a particularly important part of your website because it deals with people's personal information and credit card numbers. People are nervous about online purchases and need to be assured that they are giving their credit card numbers to a reputable company.
The Essential Christmas Web-store Makeover
Ten great tips to turn online holiday shoppers into eager
buyers - and satisfied customers.
Succeed With Your Own Home Based Business
An internet business is by far the best way to support yourself if you just cannot stand working for others for less money than you need to survive. It's also the best way to get out of a good paying job that just takes up too much of your precious short life working for someone else.
Let's face it, you probably know someone who has an internet business. Do they look happy to you? Do they complain as much about work and money as you do? Probably not.
Chinas Online Shopping May Be Booming In The Next Few Years
Data from China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) shows that till June 2004 Chinese online user has reached 87 million, of which, 7.3% has experience of online shopping.
Intranet Project ? RAD or Waterfall?
Building Bridges
How Measuring Key Performance Indicators Can Improve E-Commerce Strategy - Part One
The problem with most e-commerce marketing strategy today is that companies don't understand how they use things like web analytics. Most e-commerce directors or web marketers are given a budget and told to stick to it, and good analytics don't usually come cheap. Without web analytics you can't even begin to measure key performance indicators (KPI's), which should be a part of any good e-commerce strategy. We often see that marketers face a problem in that they know they need Web Analytics, they just don't know why they should pay for it and don't know what to measure. This three part series of articles will hopefully help clear up some of the things that marketers should measure as key performance indicators concentrating on one KPI per article.
Intranet Portals ? Collaboration through Team Rooms
Knowledge Management for beginners
Ecommerce Marketing Plan
Concept of Service
Is ClickBanks Popularity Drawing To An End?
ClickBank is the Internet's most popular payment processor for online payments but with many rivals appearing on the scene is ClickBank's popularity drawing to an end?
Ecommerce Solution for the Big and Small Business
First off, you need to know what an ecommerce solution is. An ecommerce solution can be defined in many ways. An ecommerce solution is a way to define electronic shopping carts. An ecommerce solution is used for businesses that sell things on the web. An ecommerce solution makes it possible for any sale or transaction to be made. They enable the use of credit cards and other forms of payment to be used right on your website. It is used for large companies like Ebay or Amazon. But now an ecommerce solution is for small companies and businesses as well.
What is SSL (the little padlock)?
5 Tips for Online Shopping
Shopping online has become more and more popular in America as we are all looking to save a little time and money. E-commerce sales are growing at astronomical numbers ranging from 20-25% per year. And according to Forrester Research, 40% of households are using coupons in their web shopping. The huge increases are obvious: the online savings and discounts are impossible to match by traditional stores constrained by the overhead costs of employees, rent, and insurance. By using some of the tips and tricks mentioned below, you'll be able to take further advantage of a new American pastime: saving with online shopping!
Managing Project Risks and Issues
Inherent (or Business) Risk
The Five Most Commonly Encountered, Off-putting E-commerce Errors
While getting less public handwringing than during holiday season, the "abandoned shopping cart problem" continues to wreak havoc on online sales. Recently I judged a raftload of sites for the Webby Awards (my second time) and for the Inc. magazine Web Awards, as well as for my own clients. Here are the five irritants and obstacles that most frequently disrupt the visitor's shopping experience at e-commerce sites.
Pitfalls of Doing Big International Brokerage Business Online
Nothing has helped international brokerage business more than the internet: it enables a businessperson to do business with little or no capital and to make quick contacts. Yet nothing has made the brokerage business riskier. This comes from a broker unknowingly linking genuine or false buyers with genuine or false sellers. Other ingredients also exist to cook the broker an unpalatable soup.
Gooooooooooogle It!
....there's much more to Google than you thought:
Selling Globally Through a B2B Exchange
Participation in B2B Exchanges is increasingly becoming one of
the fastest growing marketing methods for businesses looking for
augmenting their client base beyond their local markets. Any
good B2B Exchange offers direct contact with thousands of
prospective buyers in a single location. For some new
participants of a B2B Exchange, it appears to be a goldmine as
they discover unexpected quantity of readymade clients without
much effort from their side. Of course, there are many other
great benefits companies can reap from getting involved in a
B2B Exchange.
Why This Is The Perfect Time To Start Charging For Website Subscriptions
If you're a writer, researcher, subject matter expert, enthusiastic hobbyist, or an authority on almost any topic, there has never been a better time to start your own subscription website or online newsletter.
The Webmasters Assistant
There are many tools available to a webmaster to analyse website traffic allowing them to monitor the number of visitors, see what pages have been accessed and even the length of time each visitors spends accessing the website.
|
