1.

Introduction

Project management is used to carry out a deliverable (OGC, 2007). This deliverable could be
a unique product, service, or a capability (Project Management Institute, 2008). Delivering
products and services are not a big deal since once the customer needs are clearly defined; the
project scope is developed based on these needs. This scope becomes a clear target for project
manager to deliver it on schedule and on budget with taking into consideration risk issues.
However, this is not the case of delivering a new organizational capability such as a new
information system project.

While project management practices are expected to affect the quality of implementation of
a new information system project in terms of time and cost, it is not clearly known whether
they will enable organizations to integrate this new organizational/process capability in the
organization processes. Ram et al. (2013) found that even though the use of project
management practices have a significant impact on implementing an Enterprise Resource
Planning system (ERP system) on schedule and on budget, they found that these practices do
not have a significant impact on benefits realization in the post-implementation phase. This
argument is supported by a widely cited paper “IT doesn’t matter”. It shows that IT projects
fail to have an effect on organization performance (Carr, 2003). Additionally, it has been
perceived that IT investments are not associated with the organization productivity and profits
(Brynjolfsson, 1993). Indeed, there are many explanations for that. One of them is that
organizations need time to realize benefits from the new system (Schryen, 2013). Nonetheless,
most of researchers argue that the active benefits management is required (Remenyi and
Sherwood-Smith, 1998). It is also claimed that benefits management is the clue in this IT
paradox in the professional handbooks (Thorp, 1998). Although this debate is too old to be
used now, the current IT failure projects, in terms of inability to realize its expected outcomes,
are still quite high (Panorama, 2013).

Meanwhile it is argued that the solution is benefits management practices (Ashurst et al.,
2008), this research comes to examine this argument across different organizations to discover
whether these practices are really the main drivers of successful benefits realization from
implementing the new IS projects. Additionally, there are some evidences that successful
project management practices have an influence on the benefits realization in post-
implementation phase of the new IS projects. However, it is not clearly known whether
benefits management has the same influence, more, or less on the benefits realization of the
new IS projects.

To bridge this research gap, this research is developed to understand to what extent the
benefit management practices have an impact on IS business success. This research
contributes to the project management and Information Systems disciplines since it gives an
insightful argument regarding the role of project management and benefits management
practices in realizing IS business success.
 2. Literature Review
IS business success and project success are intertwined concepts. Nevertheless, IS business
success is a broader concept than the project success since the project success focuses only
on the short term goals, i.e. scope limited to project lifecycle (Davis, 2014). However,
information systems business success and project success concepts have a common arena
between them, stakeholder satisfaction. Although the traditional aim of project management
is to deliver the “iron triangle” of cost, time, and quality, the success models for project
management nowadays consider stakeholders satisfaction (Atkinson, 1999).

Nevertheless, the concept of “stakeholders’ satisfaction” could be misleading. Even though

stakeholder acceptance in project management perspective focuses on the acceptance of the
scope, time, and cost, the stakeholder acceptance in terms of IS business success is realizing
the targeted benefits of the new information system. For instance, delivering a piece of
software in time, on cost, and free of bugs is a criteria for project management success.
However, if this piece of software is unable to realize expected benefits, due to other reasons
such as improper training to users, it could not be declared that there is Information systems
business success. Therefore, this research defines information system business success as a
successful implementation of projects in time and on budget with the desired quality and
realizing the targeted benefits from these projects.

Furthermore, Information Systems projects are different from any other product delivering
projects since an integration of a new information system into existing business processes is
not easy and had a lot of troubles due to resistant to change (Davenport, 1998; Peppard and
Rowland, 1995). Consequently, there are two islands of schools that are rarely bridged in
research, as shown in Table 1. The soft school that interprets IS business success by the “use”
(Venkatesh et al., 2003), “effective use” (Burton-Jones and Grange, 2012), or “perceived net
benefits” (Petter et al., 2008b; DeLone and McLean, 2003). On the other research island, the
action school, the benefits management school, focuses on active management of benefits
(Remenyi and Sherwood-Smith, 1998) and focuses on benefits planning, auditing, and
exploitation (Ward and Daniel, 2006).

On one island, the first school, the soft one, believes that the major driver of success is the
“use” (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008). The “use” is the cornerstone in its theories; the more the
use, the more benefits will be realized and, therefore, more “success” will be achieved.
Therefore, all these researches consider the “use” variable as a mediator factor between what
can be done and the success of the system (DeLone and McLean, 2003). This school is involved
in perception, attitude, behavior, motivation, and intention. It is criticized because they do not
help the responsible person in achieving benefits from the new IS projects. Even though
Burton-Jones and Grange (2012) consider the learning action as a controllable variable for
managers to achieve the effective use, one action is not sufficient for achieving the effective
use and also this is not a management framework to guide benefit realization process.

On the other island, the action school focuses on developing models and approaches for
managing benefits in order to achieve the desired benefits, business case. The roadmap, the
planning, of setting and achieving the business case is the cornerstone of the research of this
school (Ward et al., 1996; Thorp, 1998). Research could be in developing a model for managing
benefits (Bradley, 2010; Ward and Daniel, 2006; Reiss, 2006) , in developing capabilities for
managing benefits (Ashurst and Doherty, 2003), or in determining factors that affect the
realisation process (Doherty et al., 2011).

Although the first school, the soft school, is examined using objective techniques, the second
school has not been able to verify the effectiveness of its hard approach. Roughly, all the
literature review that dealt with benefits management from the hard perspective is
interpretive research. Therefore, this research comes to fulfil this knowledge gap by
formulating and testing propositions about the validity of the hard school in realizing benefits
of the new IS projects.
Table 1: IS Business Success Literature Review
Research School Theories/ Contribution
Approaches
Soft Business Technology Acceptance It shows that the attitude toward a new system, which is based on the perceptions, is the
Success Theories: Theories 1,2 & UTAUT main factor that affects the actual system usage. Perception is affected by the design of the
theories that focus on (Venkatesh and Davis, 2000; system (Theory of Acceptance Model 1 (Davis, 1993)) or affected by other factors such as
the perceptions of Venkatesh and Bala, 2008; subjective norms, image, and job relevance (Theory of Acceptance Model 2)
users are the main Venkatesh et al., 2012)
determinants of the System Success Theories: System, Information, and service quality perceptions affect the intention to use and user
system use, since the (DeLone and McLean, 1992; satisfaction; which they in-turn affect the use behaviour and satisfaction of the user. Use
more the use, the Petter et al., 2008a; Delone and behaviour and satisfactions affect the benefits realization on individual and organizational
more benefits are McLean, 2002; DeLone and level.
realized from the McLean, 2003)
system Representation Theory – Effective Effective use is managed by adaptation actions that decrease the difference between what is
use (Burton-Jones and Grange, expected and what is realized. Adaption actions could be training on the interface of the system,
2012) hardware of it, or the business process that emerged due to the new system
Hard Business Active Benefits Management He developed ABM that focuses on continuous flow between organisation and business change
Success (Leyton, 1995) and benefits.
Methodologies:
focus on “how” Cranfield Process Model (Ward It focuses on a continuous process that flow as defining potential benefits, structuring them,
benefits are realized. and Daniel, 2006) planning for achieving, executing this plan, evaluating results, and identifying potential
benefits.

Benefit Realization Approach It is a business-oriented framework, which focused on delivering business results in a consistent
(Thorp, 1998) and predictable way.

Active Benefit Realization They developed ABR that is a continuous process for managing information system
Approach (ABR) (Remenyi and development and evaluating it.
Sherwood-Smith, 1998)
Benefit Management Approach Benefit Management starts by benefits identification, benefits analysis, benefits planning,
PMI (2006) benefits realisation, and benefit transition.
APM (APM, 2009) Benefits Management Lifecycle is a loop consists of modelling benefits, benefits profiling,
benefits strategy, benefits management plan, base lining, targeting, and benefits realisation
review.
 3. Research Methodology
This research follows a mixed research method (Teddlie and Tashakkori, 2008; Creswell and
Clark, 2007; Tashakkori and Creswell, 2007). It is started using interpretive research (Kanellis
and Papadopoulos, 2009) through conducting online focus group followed by face-to-face
interviews. The results of interviews and focus group are examined using positive research in
order to validate both ideas interpreted by the researcher and believes held by experts who
are interviewed. The testing instrument is three consecutive surveys to target different beliefs
in different geographic areas (Europe and Middle-east) as shown in Table 2.

After conducting in-depth literature review, online focus group is conducted. The rational is to
know the current practices in benefits management and to know which of these practices are
valid or usable and which are not. Online focus group is based on LinkedIn professional groups.
The questions are addressed and respondents answer the questions. Actually, they talk to each
other in the group. Researcher role is to understand carefully the debate and put the questions
that could direct the conversation into meaningful results. The eight participants were from
UK, Denmark, and Australia. Results of the online focus group are contrasted with the ideas
held in middle-east using face-to-face interviews. Interviews with eight IT senior managers in
different developing countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. This understanding, from both
online focus group and interviews, is translated into propositions to be examined using two
questionnaires.

Table 2: Respondents in the two questionnaires

Questionnaire 1 Questionnaire 2

Respondents 50 28

Countries Australia 1, Egypt 31, UAE 2, Algeria 1, Australia 3, Canada 1, Denmark

participated Germany 1, Kuwait 1, Libya 2, 1, Egypt 3, India 5, Kenya 1, Morocco 1,
Pakistan 1, Romania 1, Saudi Netherlands 1, New Zeland 1, Pakistan 1,
Arabia 5, Tunisia 1, UK 4 Qatar 2, Saudi Arabia 2, Sweden 1, UAE 1,
UK 2, Other 1

4. Theoretical Framework

4.1 Project Management and IS Business Success

Project management is “a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product,
service, or result” PMBoK Guide (2008). This definition creates a new management mentality
which has pros and cons. Pros points are many, few of them are mentioned. Identifying start
date and end date enables higher management levels and customers to follow up the
progression rate and, therefore, to expect the future hand over date and cost. Additionally,
project concept enables the sponsor/higher level management and customers to follow up
cost, time, and risk performance of the deliverable. Last but not least, identifying a unique
product means that a project scope should be identified based on the product/service
specifications.
On the other hand, project management mentality, at least at organizations based in
developing countries that do not have a proper Project Management Office (PMO), leads to
many undesired results. For instance, many organizations are found to focus only on meeting
the expectations of customers, in the case of developing a new capability like software or a
new management system, in terms of cost, time, and scope. However, there is no focus on
realizing business value from this capability. This logic is consistent with Managing Successful
Project (MSP) of OGC (2007) in that a project is about outputs not outcomes and benefits. One
of the expert commented on the ability of projects to realize business value “Gosh – project
deliver value? Heavens above. That’s not what they are for” Furthermore, integrating a new
capability into an organization processes is not too easy to be neglected (Brady and Davies,
2004). Badewi & Shehab (2013) figures out, in Figure 1, how organizations react to introducing
a new enterprise information system, e.g. an ERP system, in it. According to this curve, ERP
system implementation, as a new organizational capability, leads to organizational resistance
which affects the organizational performance.

ERP project implementation ends far before an organization is able to achieve any business
benefits from an ERP system. Similarly, one of the experts in online focus group argues that
“Programs encompass the benefits realization phase to an agreed point with the tranche.
Tranches are used in MSP (Managing Successful programs method) to control and monitor the
benefits realization and provide a feedback look if benefits are not as expected…..”. At the same
vein, a senior expert in ERP implementation, SAP Egypt, indicated that “the problem is not in
implementing the system; the problem always comes after the implementation”. This
argument is supported by Ram et a (2013) research. Even though the use of project
management has a significant impact on implementing on time and on budge, the use of
project management in implementation process does not have an impact on benefits
realisation in post-implementation (Ram et al., 2013).
Profit stabilizes and
End of Benefit project
Profit starts to stable

Profit is abnormal due to ERP implementation

Profit
Profit backs to its original level
Profit level before ERP Implementation

During implementation

Business Process
Re-engineering
period Performance starts to increase after adaptation
After Implementation

Software
Development and
IT Purchases Time

Recovery Period
Implementation
Period
Benefit Realization Project Management

ERP Project Life

Figure 1: ERP Lifecycle (Badewi & Shehab, 2013)

Research Proposition 1: Project Management practices contribute to IS business success
4.2 Benefits Management
Bradley (2010) defines benefits as “an outcome of change which is perceived as positive by
stakeholder”. Similarly, Ward and Daniel (2006) define Business Benefits as “an advantage on
behalf of a particular stakeholder or stakeholder group”. Clearly, Bradley’s definition is more
comprehensive as it considers the ‘stakeholder perception’ and ‘outcome of change’ in his
definition. Therefore, Bradley definition states implicitly that there is no positive outcome
without ‘perception of it’ and ‘change to achieve it’.

Based on Cranfield university Research on Benefit Management over 15 years (Ward et al.,
1996; Ward and Daniel, 2006; Ward and Peppard, 2002; Ashurst et al., 2008; Ashurst and
Doherty, 2003), Benefit Realization Management consists of five main stages: Benefit
Identification, the process of identifying potential benefits that align with organizational
strategy; Benefit Planning, the process of identifying how can IT be an enabler for achieving
these benefits through change planning; Executing benefit, the process of putting IT into action
through organizational change process; Benefit Reviewing, the process of reviewing benefits
realized from change process; and Benefit Exploitation, the process of realizing more benefits
from IT applications. This process is illustrated in Table 3.

Table 3: Stages and main activities of the benefits management process (Source Ward & Daniel,
2006)
Stage Activities

Identifying and  Analyze the drivers to determine the investment objectives.

structuring benefits  Identify the benefits that will result by achieving the objectives and
how they will be measured.
 Establish ownership of benefits
 Identify the changes required and stakeholder implications.
 Produce first-cut business case.
Planning Benefit  Finalize measurements of benefits and changes
Realization  Obtain agreement of all stakeholders to responsibilities and
accountabilities.
 Develop benefits plan and investment case.
Executing the  Manage the change programs
benefits plan  Review progress against the benefits plan
Reviewing and  Formally assess the benefits achieved or otherwise
evaluating the  Initiate action to gain outstanding benefits where feasible
results  Identify lessons for other projects.
Establishing  Identify additional improvements through business changes and
potential for initiate action
further benefits  Identify additional benefits from further IT investments.

The first two practices are about identifying and planning benefits of the targeted new IT
project (Ashurst et al., 2008). Benefits are recorded, planned, and contrasted with costs in the
business case (Ward and Daniel, 2006). Accordingly, a business case is a benefit planning tool.
The same is found among experts in the online focus group that business case is a vital tool as
it is clear in this argument “I am in the complete agreement that the business case is most
critical. A life without it has no meaning for a project or program. Further, I agree that the
business case should be reviewed at key points to verify its ongoing integrity in the delivery of
a project or program.” Although there is a disagreement among some of them, there is a
common acceptance among them about the importance of business case as a benefits
management practice. Another evidence from an interview with IT manager in a Saudi ministry,
he figures out that “We purchase a million of pounds software but we do not realize any value
from it; I believe if we had had a business case before purchasing the new software, the
investments in IT would be rationalized and we would get the most of potential investment in
IT projects”

The second and third practices are executing benefit plans and continues/periodical reviewing
of the benefits from the IT Project (Ashurst et al., 2008). In order to be able to implement
benefits plans and audit the performance, benefit realization responsibility should be identified
(Ward and Daniel, 2006). This idea comes with the support of experts in online focus group.
However, they did not agree on who is the responsible person or department, should the
program manager, user department, senior strategic department, or an independent
department to be responsible for the benefits.

Research Proposition 2: Benefits Management Practices contribute to IS business success.

4.3 Programme Management

There are emerging trends that programme management should be used to achieve IS
business success from new IS projects (Barclay and Osei‐Bryson, 2009). Program management
helps organizations realize IS business success from different perspectives. It (1) enables
coordination between set of projects to realize a common goal (Turner and Müller, 2003)(2)
enables to control the resources that is utilized to realize the benefits from the new capability
(3) provides account of responsibility and ownership for the benefits.

While projects are used for generating outputs, programmes, a set of interrelated projects,
lead to benefits and benefits enablers (OGC, 2007). Since information systems projects just
deploy technologies, change management and other non-project activities should come to
realise benefits from this technology (Maylor et al., 2006). Consequently, Benefits
Management should be managed in programs neither in process nor in projects. Nevertheless,
assuring the sustainability of realizing business benefits is a major drawback of managing
benefits in programmes. Once the audit is stopped, the benefits may not be realised again from
the information system. According to two participants, “benefits do not become embedded in
the business and are not sustained”. Moreover, this argument is acknowledged widely through
expert panel “Traditionally, if the project were not encompassed in a Program framework or
portfolio, it would be the responsibility of the Business unit to realise the Benefit Outlined in the
Business Case, within the on-going business. With expectations that most of the benefits will be
realised in the short to medium term and lesser in the long-term”, one of experts says.

Programme management is argued to be useful in benefits management not only because of

the ability to align between the implementation project and other supporting benefit related
projects (Barclay and Osei‐Bryson, 2009), but also because of the ability to assign the
implementation and benefit realization responsibilities. There are many evidences in the
expert focus group as well as from interviewing IT managers in the Egypt and Saudi Arabia. One
of the experts explain the importance of the use program management as follow
“If the project is part of a program, which it in most cases should be, then the program will have
a Blueprint for benefit realisation, and the program will have a Senior Responsible Owner, who
will have the responsibility for the delivery of the benefits”.

Although there is a strong belief that program management is quite useful in managing
benefits, determination of the end of the program is still a critical issue. It is mainly because
the program is terminated once projects (implementing and supporting projects) are
completed not because the benefits are realized. As it is seen in this argument

“However even programs do end, and in many real live cases before the full benefits have been
realised, and then the portfolio management will have to at least do some benefit tracking.
Benefit realisation / tracking should be anchored at a strategic level in the organisation,
whether you have a formal portfolio management function or not.”

As a result, according to experts’ point of view in the focus group, information systems projects
should be managed in “rolling wave programs”. An expert stressed that “If you do benefits as
a continuous process then there is a risk that you lose control over the relevant costs and may
spend too much to get the benefits. I guess the optimal solution is to have a rolling program of
benefit creating project. That way, you will get continuous improvement through a series of
controlled changes” Interestingly, majority of the focus group members agreed on this idea
and some of them already used to do that in their information system projects. Subsequently,
it is suggested that benefits management in projects, as a part of program, could have an
impact on benefit realization.

Research Proposition 3: Benefits management in projects outperform the benefits

management in process

5. Analysis

5.1 Contribution of Project management and benefits management practice to IS business

success
In order to find out the impact of project management and benefits management practices on
IS business success, three concepts are constructed: Benefits management practices, Project
Management Practices, and IS Business Success. Benefits Management Practices are practices
that are used by (Ward and Daniel, 2006; Ashurst et al., 2008). Four practices are selected
to represent all other practices. Practices addressed in the survey are developing business case,
benefits identification practice, benefits responsibility identification practice, and benefits
audit practice.

Project management practices are measured by asking about the performance in different
practices determined by professional institutes such as Office of Government Institute
(Grande-Bretagne. Office of Government Commerce, 2009) and Project Management
Institute (Project Management Institute, 2008). Questions about frequency of using project
charter, reviewing cost plans, reviewing time plans, the implementation of communication
plans, and the perception of usefulness of risk plan and procurement plan are selected to
measure project management practices construct.
IS Business Success concept is constructed with taking in consideration a couple of
perspectives: successful implementation in terms of cost; time; and scope and benefits
realization, since a project is successful only when it realizes what is aimed at by using the
planned quantity of resources. Consequently, the construct is measured by four questions:
implementing IS projects on schedule and on budget, and successful realization of business
benefits and organization satisfaction from IS projects.

The psychometric properties of these constructs were assessed by calculating the Cronbach’s
alpha reliability coefficient (Nunnally and Bernstein, 1994). Since the cut-off level of the
construct reliability measure is 0.60 for basic research (Nunnally et al., 1967), all constructs are
considered reliable enough to be used in this research as they are more than 0.60 as shown in
Table 4. However, benefits management practices Cronbach’s Alfa is relatively low (0.61). This
could be explained that not all organizations adopt the same level of use of benefits
management practices. Furthermore, benefits management concept is still new and immature
enough in organizations. Thus, some organizations focus on business case but they are not
aware of the importance of benefits review audit as benefits management practice.

Table 4: Cronbach's Alpha for the constructs of the first questionnaire

Concept Cronbach’s Alpha Number of items Sample size

Benefits Management Practices 0.61 4 42

Project Management Practices 0.848 6 35

IS Business Success 0.886 4 43

Linear regression analysis, as shown in Table 5, is used to determine the impact of project
management practices and benefits management practices on the IS business success.
Benefits management practices are perceived to not have a significant impact on project
implementation success. Further analysis, using linear regression, there is a weak impact on
benefits realization (R2 = 0.11) and on IS business success (R2 = 0.31). However, project
management is perceived to have a significant moderate impact on the project
implementation success at confidence interval 99% with R2 of 0.47. In addition, there is a strong
impact of project management practices on benefits realization and IS business success, R2 is
0.651 and 0.658 respectively.
Table 5: The impact matrix
Project Implementation Benefits IS Business
Success realization Success

N R2 Sig R2 Sig R2 Sig

Project Management Practices 45 0.47 0.00** 0.651 0.00** 0.658 0.00**

Benefits Management Practices 47 0.053 0.117 0.111 .021* .308 0.033*

*correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (one-tailed)

**correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (two-tailed)
 5.2 Managing benefits in programmes contributes to business success
In order to find out the difference in business success between using programmes and
continuous process or no benefits management in managing benefits, questions were directed
about a quite large scale IS projects such as ERP system. The use of programme management
could be indicated by the use of business case and the use multiple projects for a single aim
(Bartlett, 2006; Barclay and Osei‐Bryson, 2009). Hence programme management cannot be
done properly without a proper business case (OGC, 2007). Thus, there is no use of business
case means there is no use of proper programme management to manage the benefits. Since
business case is a tool for benefits planning (Ward and Daniel, 2006), it should be quantified
in terms of time and level of achievement (Eckartz et al., 2012). As a result, no quantification
of benefits is interpreted as no benefits planning and no programme management.

In Table 6 , there are a couple of constructs benefits realized construct is operationalized into
13 questions developed and used in many studies (Shang and Seddon, 2000; Murphy and
Simon, 2002; Leon, 2007). Questions cover effectiveness and efficiency indicator. Efficiency
questions are about the impact of ERP on reduction in employee, IT, transportation, and
maintenance costs, production time, and purchasing expenses and costs. Effectiveness
questions are about the influence of ERP on revenue, customer service, and customer
satisfaction, inventory and cash management performance, communication, and competitive
advantage.

Satisfaction level construct is based on personal attitude toward the system, perception
toward the system, and the perceived organizational perception toward the system. Both
constructs, satisfaction level and benefits realization, are measured using 7 point Likert scale.
Both constructs are reliable enough to be used in the analysis, since both of them have
Cronbach’s alpha, measure of reliability, greater than 60%, the cut-off level(Nunnally et al.,
1967), as shown in Table 6

By comparing between independent groups, using SPSS as results shown in Table 7 and *7
point scale is used

Table 8, it is clearly shown that neither existence of dedicated teams in managing benefits nor
quality of business case, in terms of level of quantification, has an impact on the satisfaction
level or the benefits realized from the system. This is an indication that the use of programme
management , represented in the use of teams in managing benefits and the use of business
case, does not have a significant impact on IS Business Success.

Table 6: Construct reliability

Concept Cronbach’s Alpha Number of items Sample

Benefits Realized 0.961 13 28

Satisfaction Level 0.898 3 28

Table 7: Comparing between two independent groups (with and without using of teams)
Group Statistics
Have your organization assigned a Std. Std. Error Sig. (2
team for managing benefits? N Mean* Deviation Mean tails)
Realized_Benefits Yes 16 2.9375 1.11196 .27799 0.512
No 12 2.6538 1.12553 .32491
Satisfaction_Level Yes 16 4.5208 2.06548 .51637
No 12 5.1944 1.32160 .38151 0.333

*7 point scale is used

Table 8: Comparing between two independent groups (with and without using of Business case)
Group Statistics
Business Case Levels Std. Std. Error Sig (2 tails)
N Mean* Deviation Mean
Realized >= 3 ** 13 2.5858 1.15664 .32079 0.318
< 3 *** 15 3.0154 1.05880 .27338
Satisfaction_Level >= 3** 13 4.6923 1.73452 .48107 0.752
< 3*** 15 4.9111 1.88758 .48737
*7 point scale is used
**Any level of consideration to benefits identification (Benefits are quantified over time,
quantified without time limit, or time limit for un-quantified benefits)

***there is no any quantification of benefits before implementing ERP system.

6. Conclusion

Although it was proposed from literature review and qualitative analysis that benefits
management practices have an impact on benefits realization and organization satisfaction
from information system projects, it has been found that benefit realization practices do not
have a significant impact on either satisfaction level or benefits realization. There are many
potential reasons for that.

One of the experts in online focus group says “The business case cannot help to be the single
vehicle to manage benefits, it is simply not practical, and hopefully previous comments are not
trying to suggest so. The business case mainly deals with options, quantifying the investment
to return and why a certain trajectory option is being offered as the solution” Furthermore,
some practitioners use business case as a tool for convincing top management by the
investment in the new projects. Thus, it is not used effectively to plan benefits over time. One
of the experts explains his understanding about business case as following “the business case
tends to have summary text and a level of information to understand the return to investment,
it stops when it has achieved this conversation”. As it is clearly seen, he believes that business
case is nothing but an investment tool. Therefore, if a business case is not for plotting and
forecasting benefit across the time, what is the tool that should be used for that? According to
Ward & Daniel when they used business case in their research, they used it as a way of planning
benefits not for just a way for convincing top managers. This misconception is believed to be
the main reason for finding no relationship between using business case and business benefits
realization from IT projects

Moreover, it is common in developing countries that organizations set the rules but no one
applies them. Business case development, in most of organizations interviewed, is considered
a routine work with minimal attention to it. In many organizations, a business case is overstated
to convince decision makers to invest in the new technology; the same problem appeared in
the online focus group. Consequently, it is suggested that business case should be developed
by independent entity in order to retain its importance.

Furthermore, benefits review practices are not fully absorbed by organizations and
misinterpreted by the auditors. This argument is developed by comparing between how IT
managers understand project management and how they understand benefits management
practices. Project Management is relatively in maturity phase; not like benefits management
practice, which still new and immature especially in developing countries. Moreover, in most
of the organization, the auditors of the benefits are from the user department and/or the IT
department. Logically, there is a conflict of interest in this practice; no one will show that
he/she is mistaken in the estimation of the benefits. Thus, the auditing practices lose its value.

Benefits responsibility, also, as a practice, do not have significant importance on realizing

benefits of IT projects. Although it pushes the beneficiary department from the system to do
its best to realize the expected benefits from it, benefits are not realized as they are expected.
The reason could be because there is no direct motivation for the beneficiary department to
realize business value from it. As Brynjolfsson & Brown show one practice is not useful without
taking into consideration other practices such as compensation and promotion practices in
organization. (Brynjolfsson and Brown, 2005)

7. Discussion
The research findings challenge many strong beliefs that benefits realization practices are not
a panacea for realizing benefits from IT. Indeed, it seems that the hard school alone, benefits
management school, is not sufficient to guarantee IS business success. However, the
psychological schools of perception are found to have a significant impact on business success
from IT projects (Petter et al., 2008b; Burton-Jones and Grange, 2012). This school of research
claims that the major driver of success is “use” (Venkatesh and Bala, 2008). The “use” is the
underpinning concept of these theories; the more the use, the more benefits will be realized
and, therefore, achieving the “success” (Petter et al., 2008b). Consequently, all these
researches consider the “use” variable as a mediator between what can be done and the
success of the system (DeLone and McLean, 2003). These psychological schools are involved
in learning (Burton-Jones and Grange, 2012), perception, attitude, behaviour, motivation, and
intention (Montano and Kasprzyk, 2008).

Even though it seems that the psychological schools in interpreting the way to success are
more robust than the action schools, it is not rational to claim that attitude only can lead to
success. If there is no systematic way of determining what is meaning of success (benefits
expected), proper planning to realize this success, effective implementation, and auditing the
results, success will not be realized. Simply, it is because the definition of success does not
exist. Attitude is the fuel to the way of IS business success; however, if it is not clearly
determined the way to success, this fuel is meaningless.

Thus, this research paper puts a step ahead in understanding the importance of bridging the
gap between the two islands. Benefits management without a proper managing attitudes and
perception is useless.

8. Acknowledgment
This research is funded by Egyptian Government and Cranfield University
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