Benefit Management

Under benefit management a project is seen as a process for delivering monetary benefits as opposed to deliverables or more generally specified goals.

To be useful a project benefit must be very narrowly defined as an impact which increases organizational equity (shareholder value - in the case of a corporation). 

This a harsh measure.   Intuitively you might think that increased moral is a legitimate project benefit but this is only the case if you can show a causal link between increased moral and increased shareholder value; and then express that benefit in terms of time and money. I.e. $2,000 in 6 months.

The advantage of this kind of 'harsh' measure is that it can be easily compared against the predicted project cost.  As a rule a project's benefit is usually exaggerated and its cost understated.  A good question to ask is...

If this project turns out to cost five times as much as predicted would I still want it?  If the answer is no then you need to be very sure about those predictions and the benefits you expect to gain.

In almost every case a benefit must be expressed in terms of money and time.

It is easy to suggest that all benefits can not be measured in this way and philosophically this view may be correct but the point of benefits management is to make the attempt in the belief that the project will be improved by the extent to which you succeed.  Even if a non monetary benefit is accepted there will be much discussion which will almost certainly result in some form of objective/quantitative measure and a tightening of project objectives.

Benefit management is all part of the general process if distinguishing between useful work and mere activity.   People are generally eager to engage in activity without regard to the benefit to be gained from that activity especially when it is some 3rd person or corporation which gains the benefit.  This is not due to any particular maliciousness it is just human nature.

By making plane the benefits that the project will bring it makes it more easy to measure any activity by its contribution to the realization of that benefit.

A project benefit should be distinguished from a project impact.  An impact is a change which will result from a project but not neceserily one which will lead to a benefit.   As is made clear above a project benefit should be capable of expression in terms of money and time.

It is amazing how often a project is pointed in a wholly new direction as a result of a benefits analysis which is why benefits management is so important the start-up phase of a project.