Benefits management is the third domain in program management according to the Examination Content Outline. These questions constitute 11%, or 19 questions, on the PgMP^® exam. Since programs are established in order to obtain greater benefits than if the projects and other work that comprise them were managed in a standalone fashion, it is essential to focus on benefits management from the time the program was set forward in its business case, as a candidate to be in the organization’s portfolio, until the program is officially closed, and the realized benefits then are transferred to others.

This area, therefore, focuses on the importance of the benefits realization plan and the criteria that are used to determine whether the benefits in the plan actually are met. This plan requires detailed and ongoing communications with stakeholders, especially if there are changes to the plan during the life of the program. Any changes, especially when benefits are realized as described in the plan or if they need to be modified, must be communicated to stakeholders, especially to the Governance Board and to the sponsor.

Additionally, a benefits transition plan and a benefits sustainment plan are needed. This means that once the program ends, its benefits then are transitioned to customers, end users, or to a product or an operations support group. These stakeholders require involvement in the program and a detailed understanding of the benefits of the program so they are able to sustain them once a project in the program is complete as well as the entire program.

Metrics then must be monitored to make sure the benefits are realized as stated in the plan and are communicated to stakeholders often in terms of a benefits realization report. Some benefits will be tangible and easily quantifiable, while others will be intangible and difficult to quantify but may be of equal or greater importance depending on the specific program. These benefits also must be continually reviewed to make sure the program remains in alignment with the organization’s overall strategic objectives.

As risks (both threats and opportunities) and issues arise, or as new projects are added, and others are completed, the benefits realization plan requires review and update to see if changes are required.

Benefits management, therefore, is ongoing throughout the life of the program, and its life cycle also requires review. The benefits domain in The Standard for Program Management—Third Edition (2013) discusses these items in greater detail and is titled Program Benefits Management. It describes the program life cycle and the relationship to a benefits management life cycle and shows the relationship in Figure 4-1. It also describes the importance of maintaining a benefits register during the program and its suggested contents. Figure 4-2 explains cost and benefit profiles across the generic program life cycle. The relationship between benefits management and the roadmap is explained along with program benefits and governance. Study this section of the Standard thoroughly.

The Importance of Benefits Management to Program Management

• Major activities
• Types of benefits
• Defining and delivering benefits

Program Life Cycle and Benefits Management

• Benefits Identification
  • Identify and qualify business benefits
  • Activities in benefits identification
  • The business case and benefits identification
  • Benefit register
  • Purpose
  • Contents
• Benefits Analysis and Planning
  • Purpose
  • Major activities
  • Quantifying incremental delivery of benefits
  • Cost and benefit profiles across the life cycle
  • Benefits and program governance
  • Benefits realization plan
  • Purpose
  • Contents
  • Measurement criteria
  • Communications to stakeholders
  • Benefits and the program roadmap
  • Updating the benefits register
• Benefits Delivery
  • Purpose
  • Major activities
  • Reports and metrics
  • Methods to monitor the metrics
  • Benefits and program components
  • Benefit realization criteria
  • Achieving strategic objectives
  • Analyzing and updating the benefits realization plan
  • Benefits and governance
  • Strategic alignment
  • Value delivery
• Benefits Transition
  • Purpose
  • Major activities
  • Benefits transition planning
  • Receivers of program benefits
• Benefits Sustainment
  • Purpose
  • Major activities
  • Process
  • Metrics
  • Tools
  • Planning ongoing sustainment
  • Business case
  • Analyzing and updating the sustainment plan

1. Assume you are leading a consortium of four other firms. This is the second time your consortium has worked for this specific client, and it seems that the interpersonal relationships between the people on your team and the client’s team are positive, and there is trust between the two groups. You hope for future business with this consortium and this client once your program is complete. Your success is measured primarily according to—
   1. Payback period
   2. Sustainment of benefits
   3. Products delivered according to specification
   4. Products delivered on time and without the need for additional funding
2. As you lead this consortium, XYZ, in its program work for company DEF, you have a large team and a large number of stakeholders. Since the consortium is of interest to the senior executives of all four firms, you and your core team seem to be in constant meetings and briefings with the executives and submitting reports to them, not to mention the meetings and briefings with the points of contact in company DEF. The person who is ultimately responsible for delivering the program benefits is—
   1. The program director
   2. Your Chief Executive Officer, since your firm leads the consortium
   3. The consortium program manager
   4. The program sponsor
3. Working on the next generation of computing since Cloud computing, as the program manager for the G6 program, you believe you have a major innovative, new development product. You are developing this new product for a client, firm MNO, and now you are at a point in your program where one of the projects in this G6 program is complete. You are delivering it to the MNO client representative, who wants to measure now how this benefit has helped MNO. Measuring benefits should focus on—
   1. The degree to which the benefit has been adopted and used by its intended recipients
   2. The level of customer satisfaction achieved, as measured by specific surveys
   3. The ability of benefits to translate into value
   4. The morale of the individual employees who are responsible for executing the new process or operation
4. In your work on the G6 program, which was set up with eight separate projects, since each project in it has inter-relationships with other projects especially in terms of the benefits to be delivered, you decided one best practice to follow was to track the benefits described in your benefit realization plan in a benefit register and make this register visible not only to your entire team but also to your client, firm MNO. In terms of the program benefit management life cycle, this register ends when—
   1. Benefits are delivered incrementally
   2. Benefits are transferred to product support
   3. Benefits planning is completed
   4. The program is terminated
5. Assume you prepared a benefits register for use on your program. You decide to review it with your key stakeholders to—
   1. Obtain buy in to begin developing the benefits realization plan
   2. Determine if benefit achievement is occurring within key parameters
   3. Define and approve key performance indicators
   4. Determine how best to transition benefits to operations
6. Working on your personal helicopter program for company BCD, one of your first tasks as the program manager was to build on the benefits identified and recorded in the benefit register and prepare a benefits realization plan. Now, you are measuring how each benefit is realized, which means you are working in—
   1. Benefits management
   2. Executing
   3. Monitoring and controlling
   4. Benefits delivery
7. Finally, your program, G6, which has taken the concept of Cloud computing to the next level, and your eight separate projects as well as some ongoing work, is complete. As program G6 is closed, now benefit management is focusing on a number of key initiatives, including—
   1. Reporting planned versus actual benefits at the current point in time
   2. Ensuring that the benefits delivered are in line with the original business case
   3. Ensuring stakeholder agreement on the factors contributing to the benefits
   4. Verifying the program has met or exceeded benefit realization criteria
8. Your Governance Board decided to conduct a benefits review on your internal program. During such a review, it is important to analyze—
   1. Reasons for any deviation in the proposed benefits and the ones that were realized
   2. How new benefits affect the flow of operations
   3. The effectiveness of the transition plan
   4. Usefulness of the benefit reports to stakeholders
9. You are the Business Change Manager on a mobile workforce initiative to decrease the costs associated with office space. As a result of this initiative, 2,000 employees now work in their homes, thereby saving the company millions per year in lease fees. Assume you are working to transition the benefits of your program. A key activity is to—
   1. Dispose resources
   2. Plan for behavioral changes necessary for the at home employees
   3. Monitor performance to evaluate productivity improvements
   4. Monitor the need for logistical support for the at home employees
10. You have been appointed program manager for Program XYZ. You have assembled your team and have begun work on your benefits realization plan. The person who wrote the plan delivered it to you. After you read it, you told the team member that the plan was missing a key component. It did not describe—
    1. How the potential impact of any planned program change affects the benefits outcome
    2. A method to identify interdependencies of benefits within program components
    3. A way to link the outputs to the planned program outcomes
    4. An assessment of the value and organizational impact of the program
11. Assume you are the program manager for the next generation of parachutes for your Department of the Army. Each of the new parachutes must have a reliability rating of 99.99%, and certain types of parachutes will be deployed in certain conditions given climate and terrain. In total, your program has five projects; all work is to be done in three years. As you regularly report on the status of the benefits of this program, you must measure the benefits that have accrued to date and communicate the information to your program sponsor and the program Governance Board. The metrics and procedures you are using for this reporting are stated in—
    1. Program charter
    2. Benefits realization plan
    3. Program management plan
    4. Key performance indicators
12. Assume your government is in serious financial difficulty and may even default on some government issued funds. However, you are managing a program to cut the spending of the National Park Service in your Department of Interior by 50%. You and your team have seven projects in your program. Finally, you have completed this program and have made the spending cuts, which were approved by the Secretary of the Interior. Now that the program is closed, benefits sustainment focuses on a number of key initiatives including—
    1. Facilitating the ongoing realization of benefits
    2. Ensuring that the benefits delivered are in line with the business case
    3. Reviewing the operational and program process documentation for needed updates
    4. Ensuring the capabilities provided continue
13. Working in your processed cheese company, project management has been successfully introduced over the past seven years. A member of your PMO recently attained her PgMP^®. She has recommended that a new initiative to modernize the process cheese factory be managed as a program because it is so complex and will have a number of projects associated with it that have interdependencies. She needs to—
    1. Follow a repeatable process
    2. Identify and qualify benefits
    3. Quantify benefits in the business case
    4. Focuses first on benefits realization
14. Because a program is responsible for delivering benefits to the organization, the program manager, members of the program team, project managers and team members, and other program stakeholders all have key roles and responsibilities in benefits management. These roles are set forth in the—
    1. Benefits register
    2. Benefits realization plan
    3. Benefits management plan
    4. Responsibility assignment matrix
15. As the manager of a new program to develop the next-generation heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) system, you have three projects in your program, and it is only the first year. You expect the program to last at least three years, and you are hopeful you will have a PMO for support. You also are sure more projects will be added as the program ensues. Therefore, you establish a process to monitor your program benefits. Following the standard benefits management life cycle, you develop this process during the—
    1. Benefits identification
    2. Benefits analysis and planning
    3. Benefits realization
    4. Benefits delivery
16. As you move to establish program management in your processed cheese company, you are facing a lot of questions especially from project managers and the other members of the PMO since this is a culture change from the organization. A first step is to—
    1. Define program critical success factors
    2. Meet with key stakeholders
    3. Establish processes for benefits realization
    4. Set up individual project deliverables to ensure that they align with organizational objectives
17. Assume you have just completed a program to design and develop a new Park for your City of 10,000 people. The purpose was to provide benefits to the residents of all ages. You are working to transition the benefits from your program to your City. It Is important to recognize as you do so that these activities are—
    1. One part of program transition
    2. Updated in the program roadmap
    3. Ones that ensure benefit sustainment
    4. Monitored to ensure the benefits provided are those expected
18. You are the program manager for a six-year program that is in its second year. You are in the early phases and are working to identify your benefits. A best practice is to prepare a benefits register using the—
    1. Identified and qualified benefits
    2. Business case
    3. Program’s key performance indicators
    4. Target dates in the roadmap for benefit achievement
19. Your company is a leader in the pharmaceutical industry. It has received approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a new drug that will cure all glaucoma conditions. Although the demand for this product is high, the company has many other drugs to manufacture. You are managing a program to upgrade the manufacturing process. Because you recognize the potential benefits associated with this new product, as the program manager, you should regularly monitor the—
    1. Organizational environment
    2. Benefits realization plan
    3. Benefits register
    4. Extent to which each benefit is achieved prior to program closure
20. You have worked hard on your four year program. As it is about to close you want to execute your sustainment plan. It is prepared—
    1. During the performance of the program
    2. As a subsidiary plan to the program management plan
    3. As part of the benefit realization plan
    4. As an activity in benefit transition