PMI's Establishing benefits ownership and accountability

The last report in the 2016 Project Management Institute's Thoughts Leadership series is Establishing benefits ownership and accountability. The two basic premises for the report is to drive a value-driven culture and establishing accountability and responsibility.

Those companies that create a value-driven benefits realization culture have projects and programs aligned to strategic goals; have a method to maintain business benefits within projects and programs; know how to effectively use lessons learned to increase maturity; and finally, maintains transparency throughout the portfolio process. All these put together increases the company's corporate citizenship.

Corporate citizenship means that the employees feel secure enough to return budget when the project will underrun. This allows projects that are in trouble to receive the funds needed and/or start projects that were not envisioned to start until much later. Employees have confidence that they are working on projects that drive the company's bottom line by driving strategic goals. Therefore, these employees are confident that if their project is canceled or delayed they will have another project where their skills are needed. This increases transparency up and down the chain of command.

Accountability and responsibility go hand in hand with corporate citizenship and therefore, driving benefits management realization. Companies that have clear accountability and responsibility have an increased success with projects aligning with strategy. When employees see those that are responsible and drive benefits realization management, there is a clear sense of ownership in their projects.

Driving benefits management realization is not easy but with clear focus senior management can create a sense of corporate citizenship, responsibility, accountability and a value-driven corporation. This will set the company or organization apart in the industry. Check out the report for specific details and statistics for those companies that follow what PMI advocates.