Benefits Realisation
Benefits Management is a structured and systematic approach to ensuring successful program and project outcomes, by addressing many of the common causes of investment failure such as a lack of business ownership, and poor alignment of initiatives with strategic imperatives of the organisation. Benefits Management involves the identification of potential benefits, their planning, modelling and tracking and the assignment of delivery accountabilities to ensure that planned benefits are fully realised.
The SMS Benefits Management & Realisation (BM&R) framework has been developed based on best practice frameworks such as MSP®, the Cranfield School of Management Framework and the extensive knowledge and experience of SMS consultants. The framework can be applied to all types of initiatives, including ICT and non-ICT investments.
The SMS BM&R framework:
- Ensures that proposed investment initiatives are aligned to internal and external strategic drivers for change in an organisation. If there is no alignment, then the proposed initiative is not undertaken.
- Ensures that there is clear accountability for the achievement of benefits and the enabling business changes that benefits depend on.
- Models the interdependency between benefits and business and enabling changes so that it is clear what activities are required to realise planned benefits and who is accountable for delivering them.
- Significantly increases the likelihood that the planned benefits from an investment will be achieved (ie. realised) and that these benefits are critical to the strategic requirements of the organisation.