Benefits Centric Management as a Critical Component of Successful Programmes
Xantus Consulting Managing Consultant, Howard Lewis has 17 years experience in IT oriented change and has specialised in programme and large project management for more than 10 years. Here he comments on the application of Benefits Centric Management as a tool to decrease risk and increase control in all scales of change initiatives.
Manchester, UK (PRWEB) February 23, 2006
Xantus Consulting Managing Consultant, Howard Lewis has 17 years experience in IT oriented change and has specialised in programme and large project management for more than 10 years. During the last 6 years he has focused on UK public sector clients and has fulfilled leadership roles in major programmes in civil government, defence and secure government. Here he comments on the application of Benefits Centric Management as a tool to decrease risk and increase control in all scales of change initiatives.
Our senior public sector clients consistently express their view that major IT oriented change initiatives in the UK public sector are widely seen as very high risk and that they personally feel under pressure because of this perception. Given the incidence of high profile coverage describing failures, this view is not surprising.
A benefits-centric approach to management of IT oriented change, if properly implemented, offers a powerful option for programme directors to deliver true value at minimised risk. It is especially applicable in the public sector efficiency context because many programmes cite efficiency as their guiding objective with high level justifications for the specific reductions in cost that they claim to be able to deliver. In turn, process and effort must be instilled to realise the high level benefits otherwise any consequential failure to achieve the goals is predictable and ill-understood.
As with the flavours of many past months, there is no shortage of generic advice on how this should be done (e. g. as part of the Managing Successful Project tool kit from the Office of Government Commerce). It is our experience though, that programmes with a benefits management capability up and running need to avoid establishing processes that report on, but do not inherently manage delivery of benefits.
It is our view that, where a benefits centric programme view is available, real levels of risk to successful delivery are highlighted and in the majority of instances of our experience, this risk is significantly greater than initially expected. Rigorous application of benefit centric management principles has both highlighted extensive shortcomings in the plans for delivery of efficiencies, and provided the route by which plans can be made realistic and achievable and their execution much more certain.
Properly working benefits centric management offers change leaders the ability to wrest back full control of the initiatives and to prevent or reset the reversal of the balance of power so often seen in the client/supplier relationship. Benefits centric management can provide:
A full framework for management of all contributors. This has proven especially valuable in the multi-supplier environment and is a key element in maintaining a healthy balance in the client/supplier relationships. With the commitments made by suppliers under a benefits-centric approach and the information associated with it, clients can ensure they remain in charge rather than ceding real control to a dominant supplier; Comprehensive, auditable rationale to support spending bids and business cases. This applies both at top level for example in Treasury submissions, as well as the most detailed costing exercise, for example review of estimates provided by a supplier in response to change requests; The most meaningful available baseline and integration point for all programme and project planning and control activity, so that decisions can be made in the light of full knowledge of impact on desired outcomes. In effect decision makers are provided with a powerful ‘what-if’ tool, which gives answer in defined in terms of impact on outcomes.
Effective benefits centric management is of course more easily implemented at the outset, but it has been proven repeatedly that it can offer a powerful route to recovery of initiatives that are off track and reinstatement of effective control once the outlook has been improved.
Implementing good benefits centric management requires the experience to bridge the gap between theoretical approaches and real world initiatives. In this article, we set out the main features common to successful implementations and describe the benefits they bring. We will show how benefits centric management must be treated as more than a peer process with other programme support functions, rather that it informs how all planning and control activities are carried out as well as requiring some additional activity integrated with traditional programme support office functions. It is important to understand the differences between benefit centric management and traditional output-specified approaches and the article will explain this. Finally we will offer some real-world examples and suggest what can be learned from them.
To develop this piece further or to arrange an interview please contact Catherine Sanders on 0161 246 6018.
Notes to the editor
Xantus is a specialist IT Consulting Group dedicated to assisting large corporate organisations and UK central government. Xantus’ clients include the largest UK civil secure government departments, leading financial service organisations and global retail, media, leisure and pharmaceutical corporates.
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