Benefits Management and Business Acceptance Flashcards
Benefit Management & Business Acceptance
What is the difference between benefit management and business acceptance?
Benefits management
ensures that a business change project achieves its defined business benefits.
Business acceptance
looks to ensure that users get what they asked for / need.
What phases of the V model are relevant to benefits management and business realisation?
Benefits Management
Start - Business Case Document - End - Benefits Realisation
Business Acceptance
Start - Requirements Definition - End - Acceptance Testing
funct, tech, program specs, coding, unit integration, system testing
What is the difference between industry-wide and organisation specific CSF’?
Industry Wide
Will be factors that will be common across the industy - such as airline safety
Organisation Specific
Will be something difficult to replicate, a combination of
* desirability
* quality
* value for money
eg - easyjet will go for low cost & BA will go for quality of service
How do KPI’s relate to CSF’s?
KPI’s are the measure against one or more CSF.
eg. a CSF for service quality might have 2 KPI’s measuring:
* average waiting time in A&E
* number of people waiting for operations
What is value proposition?
A value proposition is a set of reasons why a customer wants to use the business.
eg. some customers will value price and some will value quality.
Organisations must decide what their value proposition is.
How do organisations use value chains?
Value chains are split into two sections:
Primary Activities
These are the activities that a customer will interact with and are clear occassions to show where value is added.
Support Activities
These are the activities that a customer might not see but are needed to support the primary activities.
Orgs will analyse their support activities to ensure they are delivering value. If not they are put forward as options for change.
What is an observable benefit?
**An intangible benefit that can not be predicted in advance.
**
An observable benefit can be observed post implementation by a experienced industry professionals.
eg, improved staff morale,
criteria needs to be set in advance & also who will do the assessment
an observable benefit can be upgraded to a measurable one with a survey.
What is a measureable benefit?
A measurable benefit is not provable in advance.
An aspect of performance can be measured during and post implementation and compared against a baseline measure before the change.
eg. Time taken to issue documentation following a system change.
could link to financial eg. shorter waiting times = more payments made.
What is a quantifiable benefit?
These are quantifiable and proven in advance - but are not financial.
There is enough evidence to prove how much improvement (benefit) can be sought.
Eg.
* Time saved by no longer doing a task (not linked to salary)
* number of staff no longer needed to support phone lines - post switch off - moved to other tasks.
What is a financial benefit?
A benefit provable in advance and can be stated in financial terms.
eg: saving on stamps, property rent
Financial benefits will be offset against tangible costs
Benefits Plan
When does a benefits plan need to be created?
At the same time as the financial case (in the business case)
Benefits Plan
What is included in a benefits plan?
- Business Context /background of the project
- Benefit dependency map
- Benefit profiles
Benefits Plan
When might the benefits plan be reviewed?
Scheduled
Planned decision gates as moving through the delivery timeline
Unscheduled
Following a change that affects the project - eg. staff change, policy change, legislation change, difficulties with the project
Benefits Plan
What do you include in a benefit profile?
- ID & Title- A unique identifier
- Impact - how the benefit meets the business objectives
- Timing- When the benefit is expected to be realised
- Interdependencies - between the other benefits
- Dependencies on activity outside of the project
- Owner of the benefit
- Stakeholders others who are associated with the benefit
- Measures -how the benefit will be measured.
- Assumptions & risks - any assumption related to the benefit - including a plan for risks
Benefits Plan
What is the purpose of a benefits dependency network/benefits map?
It is a diagramatic view of what needs to be done within a project to achieve the expected benefits.
