Process Improvement Benefits Realisation Plan
This is a practical guide to building a benefits realisation plan for a process improvement project — how the project’s benefits will be measured and actually realised, adapted to the realities of improving an existing business process.
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 a process improvement project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Process Improvement project
Process Improvement projects live or die on improving an existing business process. 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 process improvement projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Target benefits
- Metrics / KPIs
- Baseline values
- Owner
- Realisation timeline
Process Improvement-specific considerations
Tailor the benefits realisation plan to the risks that most often derail process improvement projects:
- Change resistance
- Measuring the baseline
- Scope discipline
Example
On a real process improvement project, the benefits realisation plan would be shaped by improving an existing business process. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — change resistance, measuring the baseline, scope discipline — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.