To recap on my previous post managers who commission a project need to think about the following:

• Be clear about the benefits they are buying  – your project is costing £xxx what are you getting for that money?  Are you sure?
• failing projects do not have brilliant business cases
• That in most cases you can trace the failure of a project back to the start of the project
• Beware of staff time saving, they are only vouchers – how will they actually be cashed?
• The business must own the benefits realisation process.

So how does a business go about being thorough?

Steve Jenner suggests having a ‘fool’ to ask the questions that others don’t dare ask and to identify those ‘assumptions that masquerade as facts’ – where I worked that was me.

Benefits Realisation Process

I devised a Benefits Realisation Process so that I could have a framework to work to and to teach others the methodology:

I will talk more about the benefits register, benefits map and the development of the business case in future blogs.