Quantify, Quantify, Quantify
Quantifying business benefits has not been the norm when it comes to establishing both small-scale and large-scale programs. Many companies rush off to planning, designing, and executing the programs without first ensuring that there are business benefits that can even be attributed to these programs. Or, token or "after-hours" effort is put into sizing the benefits and shared with executive management in order to secure funding, and then forgotten in the course of the program when new information that could materially impact the estimated benefits are discovered. Or, many benefits are not sized because of lack of data or sheer laziness, and simply classified as "non-quantifiable" or "qualitative" benefits when in fact, these benefits could be quantified with a little creativity and legwork.
Finding, designing, and capturing business benefits are critical to ensuring that a business transformation program is "worth it". In the end, a program is truly justifiable if it is able to positively contribute to shareholder value through its completion. Without an explicit link to value delivery, programs may not secure sustained executive commitment and funding, new business capabilities will be developed but may not be what the company really needs, and stakeholders across the board may lose interest once the initial thrill of the program start-up has faded away.
If you have embarked on a small-scale or large-scale program, ask yourself if you know what business benefits you will be getting out of it once you reach the go-live date. Ask yourself if you have determined how shareholder value is influenced by the program. Ask yourself if the improvements you are introducing are all directly related to what adds value to the organization, and are not innovations that just appeared to be the cool and trendy thing to do. Hopefully, the answers to these questions are all "yes". If not, then this is a great opportunity to explore what it takes to "realize value for the company".
Author: Jon Brizzi
