Colin Ashurst’s research while affiliated with National University of Ireland, Maynooth and other places

The return that organisations derive from investments in information systems and technology continues to disappoint. While there is a very significant body of literature on the factors that should facilitate a successful outcome from systems development, there is growing concern that these prescriptions are not having their desired effect. In this paper, we argue that the success of a systems development project should be measured in terms of its ability to deliver meaningful benefits, rather than the timely delivery of a technical artefact, and therefore organisations should adopt an explicit and proactive benefits realisation approach when investing in IT. Consequently, we sought to explore those actionable factors that might facilitate the effective realisation of benefits from systems development initiatives. Three organisations were identified that claimed to adopt a proactive approach to benefits realisation, and detailed studies of their systems development practices were conducted. Our analysis found that whilst one organisation had been successful in its adoption of a benefits realisation perspective, the other two had not, and this allowed us to identify those factors that helped to explain this difference in outcomes. In short, this paper makes an important contribution by identifying how a sub-set of traditional systems success factors might be enhanced, to give them a more explicit benefits realisation orientation. Moreover, it presents a coherent set of principles that can be used for deriving other factors and practices.

There is growing agreement that the potential benefits of implementing business technologies will not be realised through the relatively simple act of going live with a new software application. Indeed, there is clear evidence that organisations must explicitly plan for, and proactively manage, the realisation of benefits, if a new technology is to deliver real value to its host organisation. In particular, benefits need to be leveraged through carefully planned and co-ordinated programmes of organisational change, and on-going organisational adaptation. Inevitably these insights have encouraged academics, consultants and practitioners to develop tools and techniques to explicitly support the benefits realisation process. In this paper, we argue that the adoption of any such prescription, tools or panacea is unlikely to be sufficient, as benefits typically arise from the complex interplay between systems, people, contexts and processes, often over significant time-frames. We show, through the use of a public sector case study, that a more robust and effective solution to benefits realisation problem is likely to arise from the development of a capability to support the realisation of benefits, composed of practices, and we then question as to whether it’s enacted through craftsmen.

The chapter draws on several research projects to explore the barriers to the adoption of benefits-driven approaches and how they can be overcome. It makes the case that developing a benefits realization capability within organizations needs to be approached as a benefits-driven change programme: that is, they need a benefits realization capability. So organizations are stuck in a catch-22: to succeed in developing the benefits realization capability, they already need the capability they are trying to develop. The chapter sets out some ways forward.

A framework of competences and practices for benefits realization is described following a brief introduction to the resource-based perspective of an organization and the general concepts of competences and capabilities.

The chapter draws on an ongoing action research programme, which is seeking to develop the benefits realization capability of a large organization (a Russell Group University). The chapter will outline the approach and the initial results to provide some starting points for other organizations.

There are a number of further implications of the work to date for the development of organizational competences for benefits realization. This chapter explores how the idea of ‘practices’ can be used in practice. It then goes on to explore further factors related to practices, and how they can contribute to the development of competences for benefits realization. First, the importance of clear ‘principles for benefits realization’ that provide the basis for a benefits mindset or paradigm and help guide the selection of relevant practices. Secondly, the value of the format provide by the idea of ‘patterns’ as a way of capturing and sharing what works. Patterns are presented in the context of key challenges identified in the knowledge management literature. Thirdly, the need for a common project framework within which the practices can be enacted. Finally the importance of effectiveness, it is how the practices are enacted that is important. Practices are envisaged as a resource to equip teams involved in IT-enabled change, not a new form of ‘methodology’.

This chapter draws on 45 case studies to provide insights into the current adoption of benefits-driven approaches and to provide evidence of the value of the practices/competence approach. Thanks to Neil Doherty and Joe Peppard: an extended and revised version of this chapter is found in Ashurst et al.(2008).

In previous chapters I have discussed the original development of the model of competences for benefits realization and a number of research projects that have explored aspects of the model. In this chapter I provide an outline of the model from the perspective of working with it in research, teaching and consultancy over a number of years. My aim is to bring the competences to life so that readers are able to make use of the model to help assess a situation and to make a difference.

Many aspects of benefits realization relate to management of the IT portfolio rather than individual IT projects (e.g. which projects to invest in). The chapter provides a portfolio perspective on benefits realization competences and practices.

The original work on Benefits Management (Ward et al., 1996) was driven by practitioner needs and was carried out with significant practitioner involvement. The driver for this research was to contribute to management practice and the guiding philosophy was the participatory paradigm (Breu and Peppard, 2003). As Lyttinen (1999) comments a significant contribution to practice is typically beyond the scope of a PhD study: ‘My experience shows that it takes at least three to five years to do anything. Thus anything that really addresses relevant concerns is beyond the scope of a single Ph.D. study.’ The projects that support this book took place over an eight-year period and draw on strong foundations in earlier work by others. The ongoing research has a number of implications for managerial practice.