Project Management – Evaluating Products, Benefits, and Outcomes

This lecture concludes Chapter 1 – Project Management. In this lecture we will look at why
and how you should evaluate a project, in terms of: its products, its identified benefits, and
its outcomes. This lecture will draw upon and summarise many of the themes of the
previous 6 lectures – so please take the opportunity to both explore any new material and
to confirm what you have learned so far.

The learning outcomes for this lecture are:

• To recognise the purpose of identifying and evaluating products, outcomes,

and benefits within Project Management.

• To recall ways and means to undertake such evaluation.

As with lecture 5, the subject matter in this one links closely to that in Chapter 2 – where
we will be learning more about the process of Project Evaluation.

First though let us take a moment to understand what products, outcomes, and benefits
are and how they differ from each other.

Products – they are the things that are produced during a project. There can be one or
many products, and many products can come together to form a single overall product – it
depends on what the project sets out to do.

Individual products within a project are normally the result of a discreet set of activities
within that project – known as work packages. So the overall product or outcome of project
to build a new type of survey vessel is a vessel, but that vessel, but this will also be an
assembly of many products from many work packages within the overall scope of the
project.

Outcomes – are what happens as a result of a project – and its products – being
completed and handed over. The business now has a new survey ship which will enable it
to carry out survey activity in the inter-tidal zone all year round.

Benefits – are those things which should be anticipated as happening as a result of

completing the project, so long as the project requirement is met. So the benefits of having
the new survey ship are for example:

Better crew safety in the intertidal zone

Better competitive positioning in the market.

Better employment of company resources year round

Benefits can be financial or non-financial (AKA cash or non-cash). Whatever form benefits
take they should meet a few criteria, as follows:

Project Management – Evaluating Products, Benefits, & Outcomes

Benefits should be:

• Aligned - to corporate objectives and strategies

• Directly mapped - from the requirements and outputs of the project
• Quantifiable
• Measurable
• Assigned – to someone, something, or some business activity area.

In essence what this series of checks and measures are proving is that, before you
embark on the project to do X, you fully understand why you are doing X and what the
benefits of it will be. Sounds obvious, but is often afforded insufficient thought and
analysis.

Dis-benefits

A note on dis-benefits (as opposed to a risks). Think of a dis-benefit as short term pain for
a long(er) term gain. If benefits analysis of merging Smith broom handle makers with
Jones broom head makers are obvious, a dis-benefit would be, for example, the drop in
production during the merger. A good PM will establish a communications plan and
stakeholder engagement plan to cover the dis-benefits as well as the benefits.

So, let’s look at evaluation and what it is.

Evaluation is a process that collects, records, and organises information in order to assess
the value of a thing or an activity. That value can take many forms. In the Project
Management world it is a process which is done many times during the lifecycle of a
project, for example:

So, let’s think about when and why you should conduct Evaluation?

• As a form of pre-evaluation to ‘estimate’ the value of the project before committing

time and money to it.

• As an iterative process during the project life cycle as a management tool for the
PM. This most commonly diarised as part of a wider Programme Management
activity.

• After the project is completed, to illuminate best practice, extract lessons learnt,
identify efficiencies and consider the effectiveness of all aspects of the project.

• As necessary to evaluate the Products, Benefits and Outcomes of the Project.

• And not forgetting - as required by law.

Finally it is important to note that greater the involvement of stakeholders in the evaluation
process, the more valuable the evaluation is likely to be.

Project Management – Evaluating Products, Benefits, & Outcomes

All forms of evaluation need to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and
timely) and the evaluation process should reflect the project itself in terms of duration,
complexity, and approach. An evaluation which is significantly different from the project it
seeks to evaluate may end up having little or no value.

Products

Why evaluate products?

Products are evaluated to ensure that they are fit for purpose (that they meet the scope
within the original Product Description – set out in the Definition phase of the Lifecycle as
you will recall). The Product Description should have been written by the PM but it is good
common sense for subject matter experts in the area of the product use, and those who
will ultimately use the product, are in attendance when the PD is written to avoid costly
failure later on – this goes back to the principle of prevention over inspection we discussed
in Lecture 5. ‘Fit for Purpose’ infers that the Product meets both the required quality
standard, and any legal compliance standards (for both build and use). The outcome here
is that the Senior User for the product confirms that their requirements of the product are
accurately defined.

How to evaluate products:

The evaluation criteria for a Product vary widely dependant on the nature of the project. As
a guideline the following are normal;

• A form of visual inspection.

• A form of testing of the product for its intended use against a percentage of its
capability.

• The Senior Supplier of the product formally confirms that the delivered product
meets the Product description.

Benefits

Why evaluate benefits?

The overriding reason for evaluating the benefits in a project is to maximise the value of
return on the investment made. The benefits evaluation process is a learning opportunity
and should be undertaken in a positive manner.

How to evaluate benefits:

• Determine and confirm (from the Project Initiation Document (PID) – otherwise
known as the reason for the project) which planned benefits have been achieved.

Project Management – Evaluating Products, Benefits, & Outcomes

 • Identify which benefits have not been achieved and decide whether any follow up
action is required (an action that will feed a lesson learned).

• Identify any unexpected benefits that have been achieved and also any resulting
dis-benefits.

• Understand and document why particular benefits were or were not achieved.

• Provide lessons learned from this document to aid future projects in their benefit
management process. The current project may not have realised the benefits to the
absolute maximum, however future projects may be able to refine some of the
processes within the project and increase a future return – therefore it is essential
that the analysis of benefits is undertaken in a co-operative and open manner rather
than as an exercise in apportioning blame.

• Demonstrate the value of money relative to the investment (noting the likely
passage of time since the PID, and potentially since the end of the project, if the
project has a benefits realisation period of many months or years). This activity may
well prioritise the nature and type of future projects.

Outcomes

Why evaluate outcomes?

In Project Management language an outcome is the result of the change derived from
using the project’s outputs e.g. if the output is a new sales system, then one outcome is
that sales orders are processed more quickly and accurately (the benefit would then be a
measurable improvement from the outcome e.g. a 15% reduction in sales system
operating costs per year). Succinctly, if you don’t evaluate the outcome you will have
nothing to scale the benefits against. As the outcomes and benefits of projects are often
realised after the project has closed, it is very easy for projects to become solely focussed
on creating products (outputs). This should be guarded against otherwise the original
purpose of the project can get lost in the ‘making of stuff’.

Project Management – Evaluating Products, Benefits, & Outcomes

How to evaluate Outcomes:

The PID will identify the planned outcomes and should also consider and document how
they are to be evaluated.

It should state;

• What information / metric to collect

• How to collect the information

• When (frequency) to collect the information

Outcome indicators need to be articulated – these are bits of information that show
whether (or not) your outcomes have been achieved. Outcome Indicators can be;

Quantitative – indicators that count numbers of things that have happened.

Qualitative – indicators that assess people’s perceptions and experiences of things that
have happened.

For example, a project to increase wellbeing in off-shore oil workers will have different
Outcome Indicators to a project to increase productivity in the Caister Gas Field.

Remember, though, to define Outcome Indicators which are flexible and can handle a
range of values - rather than just straight yes or no answers to simplistic questions. By
doing this you will be better able to reveal the true value behind different outcomes.

In this chapter we focused on the process and mechanics of Project Management, and by
now you should have a broad understanding of Project Management in terms of: what it is
for and how it is undertaken, including some of the tools, techniques, and terminology
commonly associated with modern Project Management. But process is only one part of
successful Project Management, and in the next chapter we will go on to consider the non-
process elements of Project Management, and in particular the role that Leadership has to
play in many aspects of successful Project Management activity – both your own
leadership as the PM, but also the leadership of those around and above you within your
organisation.

By now you should have met the learning outcomes of this lecture – take a moment to
remind yourself what they were and to confirm you have achieved them. They were:

• To recognise the purpose of identifying and evaluating products, outcomes,

and benefits with PM.

• To recall ways and means to undertake such evaluation.

Project Management – Evaluating Products, Benefits, & Outcomes

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Project Management – Evaluating Products, Benefits, & Outcomes