Business benefit management guides projects and business changes towards new expected benefits
An expected benefit describes the future state to be achieved in the operations. In PPS, the benefit owner is ultimately responsible for business benefit management and developing a business case.
PPS helps your operations to achieve a common way of working by offering complete support for business benefit management. The PPS model also provides support for both strategic management, business change management and project management. Having PPS as a model means that all roles in the operationsn share the same view and can work with the same concepts and terms. The support comes in the form of processes, templates, checklists and what we call skills. The skills describe how to do things.
Evaluating and describing an expected benefit at a certain cost, at a certain point in time and with the result described in the form of benefit objects is often a comprehensive work. This is summarised in a business case and supplemented with an anchored benefit realisation plan. The business case summarises and compares the estimated costs and benefits. In addition to the costs of the projects, the costs must also include an assessment of the need for business change. In addition, it also includes developing a plan for how the expected benefit will be achieved.
In parallel with projects, the benefit owner is also responsible for preparing and communicating change in operations. To make operations ready to receive the results of projects and activities, change management is needed. Business change management is a prerequisite for the results produced to create benefits in operations. Business change only takes place when people change their behaviour. The PPS model supports business change management with a focus on the human perspective.
Creating the conditions for new behaviours and abilities makes operations ready to receive the results of projects and other initiatives and ensure that benefits are created. This requires dedicated business change management that is committed to planning and implementing the business changes.
Read more about Business change management
Benefit realisation, where both business changes and benefits are monitored and measured over time, is a tool for steering towards the expected benefits. It is followed up to show whether everything is working as intended or whether more or different efforts are needed to achieve the benefits.
The basics for business benefit management and achieving the expected benefit are that the project is formed and managed on the basis of a business case, that the reference group work functions well and provides acceptance, and that the business change is well organised and actively managed.
A business case is the plan for realising and monitoring the expected benefits. It is a living document that is also used during and after a project by the benefit owner to assess new opportunities and to decide on changes.
Sometimes the benefit owner delegates the responsibility for realising an expected benefit to a programme. In this case, it is the programme management that describes and details the expected benefit. The management of a programme, consisting of programme managers and business change managers, is responsible for coordinating the work and ensuring that the business change in operations is achieved and the expected benefit is realised. The expected benefit becomes the objective of a programme.
Read more about the PPS Business benefit management course