benefits management - what the academic papers say

Yorkshire Centre for

Health Informatics

academic

Benefits – what the ^ papers say

Benefits Management Network

22nd January 2015, Leeds

Ruth Evans, Yorkshire Centre for Health Informatics

R.P.Evans@leeds.ac.uk @ruth_evans

Question…

• Right now, what are you hoping you’ll find out from this talk?

Literature search found…

• A selection from 2012 – 2015 (mostly)

– Started searching Medical / Health literature

– Moved on to Business / Management

• Not a systematic review!

Types of literature found

Academic literature

Case study/ies

Opinion

Survey

Literature Review

Other…

Common themes – part 1

• Referring back to common texts

– Ward and Daniel

– Bradley

– Jenner

• The theory is all well and good, but what’s happening in

practice?

Opinion / literature reviews

Breese, R. 2012.

Benefits Realisation Management: Panacea or False

Dawn?

International Journal of Project Management, 30:341-351

Doherty, N.F. 2014.

The role of socio-technical principles in leveraging

meaningful benefits from IT investments.

Applied Ergonomics, 45:181-187

Breese 2012

Benefits Realisation Management: Panacea or False

Dawn?

Too many assumptions

Tension and conflict

• Because assumptions don’t hold in the real world

BM ambiguous

and contested

“The more

ambiguous

or uncertain

the benefits,

the more

important it

is to focus

attention on

them…”

Doherty 2014

The role of socio-technical principles in leveraging

meaningful benefits from IT investments.

Relates current Benefits Management thinking to older socio-

technical ideas

Similar aim, but

Socio-technical – get the social right - user-focused

BRM – more managerially focused

Single Case Study

Coombs, C.R. 2014.

When planned IS/IT project benefits are not realized: a

study of inhibitors and facilitators to benefits

realization.

International Journal of Project Management, 33:363-379

Coombs 2014

When planned IS/IT project benefits are not realized: a

study of inhibitors and facilitators to benefits realization.

Often a lack of context to evaluation

Literature review – finds lots of theory but lack of testing

Case Study – enhanced BDN to show facilitators / inhibitors

retrofitted (next slide)

Multiple Case Study

Ashurst, C., Freer, A., Ekdahl, J. and Gibbons, C. 2012.

Exploring IT-enabled innovation: a new paradigm?

International Journal of Information Management, 32:326-

336

Doherty, N.F., Ashurst, C. and Peppard, J. 2012.

Factors affecting the successful realisation of benefits

from systems development projects: findings from

three case studies.

Journal of Information Technology, 27:1-16

Ashurst et al 2012

Exploring IT-enabled innovation: a new paradigm?

10 case studies - all successful IT-enabled projects

Dynamic

Capability

Agile

Crowd

sourcing /

social

technologiesKey practices /

enablers to

innovation

Doherty et al 2012

Factors affecting the successful realisation of benefits

from systems development projects: findings from three

case studies.

3 case studies – all claimed a pro-active benefits approach

BM is an excellent

idea, in theory…… so why isn’t it

working?

Doherty et al 2012 (cont)

BDN being imposed in hope of finding benefits

Detailed planning for realisation of benefits

• Benefits orientation

• Organisational change

• Tailor to context

• Success factors are

interdependent

• Investment lifecycle

• Portfolio focus

Survey (n: 331)

Serra, C.E.M. and Kunc, M. 2015

Benefits Realisation Management and its influence on

project success and on the execution of business

strategies.

International Journal of Project Management, 33:53-66

Serra et al 2015

Benefits Realisation Management and its influence on

project success and on the execution of business

strategies.

How does BRM affect:

project success rate?

organisational value?

Not much

Outcomes adhered to

business case

Having a BM strategy helps,

including the ability to define

success criteria.

Others

Carroll, T. 1997.

A strategy for empowerment: the role of midwives in

computer systems implementation.

Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine, 54:101-

113

Dickerson, C., Green, T. and Blass, E. 2014.

Workforce development and effective evaluation of

projects.

British Journal of Nursing, 23(12):685-690

Common themes – part 2

• Reinforcing existing ideas

• Room for more research?

• Is the “problem” (and “solution”) bigger than BRM?

• Emergent benefits? Not just tackling a problem, but

working to achieve a vision.

Have we learned anything?