Software Development Benefits Realisation Plan
This is a practical guide to building a benefits realisation plan for a software development project — how the project’s benefits will be measured and actually realised, adapted to the realities of building and shipping a software product or feature set.
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 software development project it plays the same role, tuned to this kind of work.
Why it matters for a Software Development project
Software Development projects live or die on building and shipping a software product or feature set. 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 software development projects drift into avoidable delay and cost.
What to include
- Target benefits
- Metrics / KPIs
- Baseline values
- Owner
- Realisation timeline
Software Development-specific considerations
Tailor the benefits realisation plan to the risks that most often derail software development projects:
- Scope creep
- Technical debt slowing delivery
- Third-party dependency risk
Example
On a real software development project, the benefits realisation plan would be shaped by building and shipping a software product or feature set. In particular, it should explicitly account for the project’s biggest risks — scope creep, technical debt slowing delivery, third-party dependency risk — rather than treating them as afterthoughts.