In-House Training: Managing Benefits™ Foundation and Practitioner Level

• The definitions of benefits, benefits management and related terms; and the objectives of benefits management
• The Benefits Management Model and specifically:

• • The relationship between the principles, practices and relevant techniques
  • The names of the five practices in the Benefits Management Cycle
  • The factors that will affect how the practices will be adapted.

• How value management relates to benefits management and the main value management techniques available
• The barriers to efficient and effective benefits management and strategies to overcome them, including the Key Success Characteristics of benefits management
• The organisational context within which benefits management operates and the key functions and activities with which it needs to coordinate its activities

The seven principles upon which effective benefits management is based:

• Align benefits with strategy
• Start with the end in mind
• Utilise successful delivery methods
• Integrate benefits with performance management
• Apply effective governance
• Develop a value culture.

• The objective and scope of the Identify and Quantify practice
• What is involved in identifying strategic drivers, investment objectives and benefits using benefits discovery workshops
• What is involved in identifying benefits using benefits mapping

• What is involved in identifying benefits using customer insight
• What is involved in quantifying/forecasting benefits, and specifically:

• • The main problems faced in developing reliable benefits forecasts
  • Solutions to the above.

• The objective and scope of the value and appraise practice.
• What is involved in valuing:

• • Financial benefits
  • Efficiency improvements
  • Non-financial benefits

• What is involved in undertaking a cost-benefit analysis
• What is involved in undertaking real options analysis
• What is involved in undertaking cost-effectiveness analysis
• What is involved in undertaking multi-criteria analysis

• The objectives and scope of the Plan practice.
• What is involved in validating the benefits
• What is involved in prioritising the benefits
• What is involved in managing pre-transition activity
• What is involved in selecting appropriate benefit measures

• What is involved in managing benefits threats and opportunities
• What is involved in planning effective stakeholder engagement
• The main initiative-level benefits management documentation, including the Business Case, and their typical contents.
• The main initiative-level benefits management roles and their respective responsibilities

• The objective and scope of the Realise practice
• What is involved in transition management
• What is involved in tracking and reporting benefits realisation and taking corrective action
• What is involved in achieving behavioural change by winning hearts as well as minds
• Align incentives with benefits realisation
• Recognize the power of conversations
• Adopt new routines
• Apply learnings from the fields of neuroscience and psychology
• Develop measures that engage
• Utilise ‘narrative leadership’ and storytelling

• The objectives and scope of the Review practice
• What is involved in reviews at startup: start gate and pre-mortems
• What is involved in ‘in flight’ benefits reviews, stage/phase gate reviews, portfolio-level reviews and Gateway™ reviews
• What is involved in post-implementation and post-investment reviews

• The objectives and scope of portfolio-based benefits management including the names of the seven key elements in portfolio-based benefits management
• What is involved with Element 1: Benefits eligibility rules, including a consistent approach to benefits categorisation and features of an appropriate benefits categorisation system
• What is involved with Element 2: Portfolio-level Benefits Realisation Planning including consideration of portfolio-level benefits threats, dependencies and opportunities
• What is involved with Element 4: Effective arrangements to manage benefits post initiative closure
• What is involved with Element 5: Tracking and reporting benefits realisation at a portfolio level
• The purpose and typical contents of the main portfolio-level documentation
• The responsibilities of the main portfolio management roles in relation to benefits management

• The three broad approaches to implementing benefits management
• When each approach to implementation is most relevant, the advantages of planned approaches to implementation, and the first ten steps in implementing benefits management
• The factors to consider in sustaining progress

• Discussion of queries arising from the Foundation Exam (note: the Live Exam cannot be discussed specifically)

• Exam simulation to help practice your exam timing.