Benefits Realization

Benefits Realization

The Benefits Realization capability allows organizations to assess their progress towards the outcomes and benefits defined within their strategy and planning phases. Each capability within the Planview Capability Framework has a distinct set of features and functionality, business processes, best practices, and analytics and reports that deliver value to customers in the form of specific business outcomes.

Definition and Business Value

Definition

Allows organizations to assess their progress towards the outcomes and benefits defined within their strategy and planning phases. It enables organizations to measure the value products, initiatives, and investments (such as programs, projects, and epics) deliver to the enterprise based on the defined strategic plans, objectives, financials, and roadmaps.

Business Value

We can realize objectives by measuring the performance of key results against targets.

Business Value

We can utilize key performance indicators on investments to measure progress against the approved business case.

Business Value

We can monitor and manage revenue and benefits performance and realize value by comparing actual and forecast against the plans of programs and products to ensure investments are meeting objectives and maximizing performance.

Best Practices

Assign a benefits owner

Assign someone who will be accountable for realizing benefits once benefits projections have been evaluated. This role includes creating the business case and further refining projected benefits, collecting and reevaluating data at key project gates, and then reporting how benefits perform against the baseline.

State the benefits clearly

State clearly in your business case what the expected benefits are, how they will be measured, and a timeframe for their realization. This will gain buy-in from key stakeholders and make reevaluation and reporting easier during execution and delivery, especially for intangible benefits like customer satisfaction and brand awareness.

Rank your benefits

Create a ranking order for your expected benefits. Having a ranking order determines which benefits you will track in the greatest depth and which metrics will most contribute to the overall health of your benefits realization.

Measure around the milestones

Determine a cadence for measuring and reporting benefits to track progress and detect potential issues. Since benefits can begin realization once projects , programs, or products are delivered, using the expected delivery dates of key projects can provide a baseline schedule.

Commit to delivery

Effectively communicate the final goals and benefits to your teams to ensure they commit to achieving the benefits. Understanding and committing to the benefits will aid in alignment between teams and managing unexpected changes.

Conduct a debrief

Hold a benefit debrief through surveys, in-person meetings, or a combination of both. Review the organization’s performance and evaluate how to implement new knowledge. These discussions should examine questions such as whether benefits projections were optimistic or pessimistic, if projections were accurate, if execution was mindful of the benefits, and more.

Processes and Reports

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The benefits realization capability allows organizations to realize the value of their products, initiatives, and investments. This is monitored by tracking key results against outcomes, and reviewing financial plans that track benefits, revenue, and costs.

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Benefits Realization Process Steps

           

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Benefits realization process flow

           

Process Step Description

Roll up financials (product, program, work)

The purpose of this step is to summarize costs and benefits to date by rolling up financial planning data from work and programs to products, strategies, outcomes, and any other entities.

Review financials against the baseline

The purpose of this step is to monitor the realization of the financials using a comparison against the baseline in order to track any variance. Users should harness this information to make well-informed investment decisions and any appropriate corrective actions.

Financial planning detail will have been updated with the appropriate budget and target data during the funding and financial planning process and a financial baseline will have been taken.

Manage ongoing product financials

As financials are monitored and compared against the baseline so both forecasted and actual information can be managed going forward.

For more information:

Review relevant key results against objectives

Key results allow you to capture and track progress toward your objectives. Project, product, and portfolio managers should periodically review the current state of key results to see if progress is being made towards relevant objectives.

Review benefits roadmap

Roadmaps lets you track benefits over time and understand when benefits will be realized. Project, product, and portfolio managers can add benefits to the roadmap at the appropriate date, and link to relevant AgilePlace cards.

Benefits review

This step represents a decision point.

Review the expected benefits against the actual results realized. How do they match up? Are your original plans still valid? Do the stakeholders want to see anything else?

Based on the information, strategic decisions can be made on whether to persist, enhance, fund, or retire investments.

Closure

The investment goes through the appropriate closure process.

 

           

Benefits Realization Reports

How are we able to understand all cost and benefits forecasts for programs and projects across the organization?

FastTrack Power BI Showcase Dashboards – Strategy – Strategy Financial Analysis Power BI Dashboard This dashboard shows the forecasted costs of strategic initiatives and programs in select portfolios, allowing you to identify the trend of forecasted costs over time. You can configure the dashboard to slice and display data in numerous ways.
Strategy Portfolio – Portfolio Manager –Customizable Column Set Tile This allows you to see strategy data in a customizable column set, including roadmaps, financials, effort, and more.
STR31 – Strategic Portfolio Cost and Benefit Analysis Analytic This report analyzes program data and summarized portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue. You can slice data by strategy attributes, account structure levels, or line attributes of selected accounts. The report can be configured to run against each level in the strategy structure.
STR32 – Strategic Portfolio Financial Performance Analytic This report compares versions of the strategic program and summarized portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue. A burndown chart is included for the portfolio and each initiative. You can run the report against each level in the strategy structure.
STR33 – Strategic Initiative Pipeline Matrix Analytic This report can select cost, revenue, or benefit-based measures from the financial planning data to drive bubble size and visualize the pipeline of strategic initiatives. You can configure the report to run against each level in the strategy structure.
STR34 – Strategic Portfolio Investment Risk and Reward Analytic This report is based on financial plan data and allows you to select benefit or revenue measures for the x-axis, a risk-based attribute for the y-axis, and cost-based measures for the bubble size. You can configure the report to run against each level in the strategy structure.
FastTrack Power BI Showcase Dashboards – Work Power BI Dashboard

This dashboard displays a range of out-of-the-box Power BI visualizations for the Financial Summary, Portfolio Balance Count, and Portfolio Balance Cost dashboards.

Detailed information for each visualization is provided, highlighting the configuration steps required to recreate the visualization.

Work Portfolio – Portfolio Manager – Customizable Column Set

 Tile This column set gives you an overview of work items in a portfolio and their details, including synced AgilePlace boards, start and finish dates, and percentage complete.
WRK14 – Project and Portfolio Highlight Report Analytic

This report summarizes key project information into a one-page report for stakeholders and project review meetings.
 
The report includes the following:

  • Project attributes
  • Assigned owners and responsibility information
  • Dates and milestones
  • Trend of project condition, RAG, or RYG status
  • Financial summaries
  • Change requests
  • List of risks and issues
  • Descriptions
  • Additional commentary

You can run the report for a single project or across the portfolio. The portfolio report includes an executive summary on the first page, followed by one-page summaries for each project on individual pages.
WRK31 – Work Portfolio Financial Analysis Analytic

This report analyzes project and portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue.

The report uses a single version of the financial plan and a data type based on project attributes, account structure levels, or line attributes of selected accounts.
WRK32 – Project/Work Portfolio Financial Burndown Comparison Analytic

This report compares versions of project and work portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue.

The report includes the following:

  • Burndown chart for the work portfolio and each project
  • Portfolio-based and summary time-phased chart showing the financial profile across the whole portfolio, based on versions of the financial plan
  • Project-level and time-phased chart showing the financial profile for each project, based on versions of the financial plan
  • Detailed data tables
WRK33 – Project Cost or Revenue/Benefit Bubble Analytic This report can select cost, revenue, or benefits-based measures from the financial planning data to drive bubble size.
WRK34 – Work Portfolio Investment Balance Bubble Analytic This report identifies the risk and reward balance across projects. You can select benefit or revenue measures for the x-axis, a risk-based attribute for the y-axis, and cost-based measures for the bubble size. The report can run against each level in the strategy structure.
Outcome Portfolio – Portfolio Manager – Customizable Column Set Tile This customizable column set allows you to see an overview of the outcome breakdown, including total cost of ownership, labor costs, status assessment, and more.
OUT31 – Outcome Portfolio Revenue and Cost Analysis Analytic This report analyzes program data and summarized portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue. The report uses a single version of the financial plan and a data type based on project attributes, account structure levels, or line attributes of selected accounts. You can configure the report to run against each level in the strategy structure.
OUT32 – Outcome Revenue/Cost Forecast Performance Analytic This report compares versions of outcome data and summarized portfolio financial plan data, with effort represented as FTEs, days, and hours, and financials as cost, benefits, and revenue. The report includes a burndown chart for the portfolio and each initiative. You can configure the report to run against each level in the strategy structure.

           

 

Related Capabilities

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