Infrastructure Development Benefits Realisation Plan
This is a practical guide to building a benefits realisation plan for an infrastructure development project — how the project’s benefits will be measured and actually realised, adapted to the realities of delivering large public or private infrastructure.
What a Benefits Realisation Plan is
A benefits realisation plan is how the project’s benefits will be measured and actually realised. For the full concept and how it works in general, see Benefits Realization. On an infrastructure development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for an Infrastructure Development project
Infrastructure Development projects live or die on delivering large public or private infrastructure. A well-built benefits realisation plan gives the team a shared, explicit reference for exactly that — reducing ambiguity, aligning stakeholders, and making problems visible early enough to act. Skipping it, or doing it generically, is how infrastructure development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Target benefits
- Metrics / KPIs
- Baseline values
- Owner
- Realisation timeline
Infrastructure Development-specific considerations
Tailor the benefits realisation plan to the risks that most often derail infrastructure development projects:
- Long lead times
- Permits and land
- Cost inflation over long horizons
Example
On a real infrastructure development project, the benefits realisation plan would be shaped by delivering large public or private infrastructure. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — long lead times, permits and land, cost inflation over long horizons — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.