Benefits management of a transformation—put that way, it sounds so simple! But you’d be surprised at how much of a challenge it is for organizations undergoing transformation. If you sometimes have difficulty making choices when faced with a whole lot of good ideas and opportunities, you are not alone. I have worked with many leaders who had tons of great ideas, but who had difficulty getting them to make choices around very clear goals and priorities.

Have clear goals and measurable benefits is the start

To compare different opportunities and prioritize the various elements of your transformation, you will need to reduce them to the lowest common denominators: 2 or 3 key priorities that you will translate into measurable benefits. If, for instance, one of your goals is to reduce all deadlines across the organization by 50% on average, this might mean reducing the time it takes to deliver a part to a customer from 10 days to 5, or the time to fix a level 1 computer problem from 4 hours to 2.

Determine how the transformation initiatives contribute to benefits realization

You will now have another indicator you can use to prioritize your initiatives: their contribution to your priorities. Once you have clear priorities, you can build your own model to compare the various opportunities by demonstrating how they will help you achieve your goals and, ultimately, your transformation.

Measuring benefits realization is crucial 

To really succeed, however, it’s not enough to simply identifying the right initiatives based on anticipated benefits. You must also ensure that those benefits are realized. Once you get the green light, make sure you stay focused on benefits realization during AND after implementing the initiative. That means having the courage to halt a project or initiative if the initial assumptions no longer hold true. You must be flexible and question yourself constantly.