Benefit Realisation Management: A Practical Guide to Achieving Benefits through Change

Citation

Narasimhan, K. (2007), "Benefit Realisation Management: A Practical Guide to Achieving Benefits through Change", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 11 No. 2, pp. 85-86. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2007.11.2.85.3

In pursuit of excellence to retain customers by delighting them, organizations invest heavily in programmes such as Six Sigma, adoption of Business Excellence Models, etc. All these programmes involve change and it is essential that non‐financial benefits and costs of these programmes be also undertaken in addition to financial issues.

Gerald Bradley after gaining both academic and industrial experience founded Sigma, a consultancy and training organisation, that focuses exclusively on Benefit Realisation Management (BRM). He has been working in this field for 20 years pioneering and developing the thinking of benefit realisation. He frequently addresses management and academic groups and has contributed to postgraduate courses including MBA.

The book comprises 31 chapters of varying lengths (from 4 to 24) grouped into 4 parts, and is supported by 101 diagrams and a chapter titled Glossary of Terms (10 pages). The Glossary is tabular and each term is defined and elaborated, and also the section where a term is introduced is given.

Part I examines, in seven chapters, the fundamentals of benefit realisation and gives a good overview of BRM, providing context. Topics covered include Today's biggest challenge, stakeholders, project and programme fundamentals, key BRM roles and responsibilities, planning and preparing for success.

Part II is about the application of BRM to the achievement of vision and is covered in 17 chapters. It not only elaborates the material contained in Part I, but also introduces new tools and techniques. It provides more information on the important question of how to implement BRM with examples. More complex situations are also considered. However, some topics are very superficially covered, for example, Whole‐life costs, Change management, Risk management, the Stakeholder management strategy and plan, and the Blueprint. Topics such as Vision and objectives, Benefits, Measures, Identifying and assessing benefit dependencies, Structuring change delivery, and the Change/BRM process are covered in some depth.

Part III is a single chapter that focuses on the application of BRM to create and maintain a portfolio of programmes or projects. It also explains as to who should be responsible and how that responsibility should be exercised. It emphasises the need for senior managers to buy into BRM and the necessity for ensuring that these are in tune with other management performance monitoring processes.

Part IV comprises seven chapters and addresses the theme of embedding BRM within an organisation by changing the mindset and winning the hearts and minds of people in it. The first three chapters deal respectively with the embedding BRM within an organisation, culture and leadership issues, and the dangers of giving financial values to non‐cashable benefits. The fourth chapter briefly considers how BRM fits with other approaches such as Managing Successful Programmes, Balanced Business Scorecard, and European Foundation for Quality Management, Value Management.

Chapter 29 deals very briefly with the fundamental requirements for a comprehensive integrated software system to support the BRM process. Chapter 30 describes how Driving and Vehicle Licensing Authority, UK, transformed itself from an organisation focused on routine licence processing to a valuable crime prevention organisation, by managing a portfolio of change programmes. The benefits accrued from such a change has helped the public, staff, and other Government Agencies.

Bradley has also provided a 14‐item (not 15 as he mentions in the preface) instrument, which can be used as a health check.