Value Lifecycle Management (Value Management)

A revolution in Value Assessment and Release

According to Gartner, at least 25% of all costs associated with change activity are wasted. In addition, our experience shows that improper sequencing of change activities will put up to 60% of value at risk.

This wastage derives from a number of sources principal among which is the inability to isolate and scale real value. The result? Misdirected resources chasing sub optimal goals with lower than expected delivery outcomes.

These two facts together convinced us that conventional investment appraisal and programme management techniques are not as effective as they need to be.

What's needed is a new way to look at the management of projects that maintains value at its centre - a way that doesn't force you to throw away your existing project management tools and techniques, but ensures that 'value' and its delivery remain centre stage from initial thought through to actual delivery.

It's why we created Value Lifecycle Management (Value Management).

What are the Benefits

Accelerated benefits identification.
Scope, complexity, activity, cost, risk and time to benefit reduced.
Clear, strong articulation of business case and value tracking approach.
Consolidated reporting of all programmes with drill down and What-if?.
Continuous and pre-emptive view of balance between value and affordability.
Early warning of budget stress and/or value erosion.
Provides mechanisms for the rational trading of cost against value.
Visual link between complex task centred programme management activity and those issues fundamental to delivery of value.
Powerful and pre-emptive value tracking because the linkage between value, cost, action and time are continuously made visible and therefore are readily understood.
Governance community empowered to intervene because they are never unsighted by the complexity of task based activity and remain focused upon the delivery of optimal value within the context of affordability.

So, what is Value Lifecycle Management? (Value Management)

Every complex programme must optimise value (Benefits) within tight financial constraints. But value can be difficult to identify and can leak away because of inefficiencies in the complicated range of interactions, technologies, tasks and costs needed to deliver them.

Value Lifecycle Management (VLM) (Value Management)is a complete process that deals with all these issues.

1	Quick Estimate – Before doing anything – check the potential value If you are planning a significant change in your organisation, whether it's seeking performance improvements, reducing costs, developing new products or whatever it might be, the very first step is to understand whether it's actually worth it. The VLM (Value Management) Quick Estimate module allows you to calculate a range of likely business outcomes. Armed with this key information, it then becomes possible to judge likely returns and relative priorities.
2	Aims, Impact & Measures - What do you want? How will you know when you've done it? A.I.M. steps you through a process that helps you to be very clear about your aims, the impact that achieving those aims will have on the organisation, how to measure everything of importance and who will be accountable. A.I.M. then prompts you through a similar process to assess potential solutions for achieving your aims. The resulting analyses will show very clearly the required value targets and impacts plus a view of the extent to which available solutions are likely to be able to meet the requirements. This means that targets will align with what is likely to be achievable and will not therefore be set unrealistically high.
3	Outline Business Case - Does the initial thinking make sense? Combine the Quick Estimate and A.I.M. results with some indicative costs and create an outline business case. If it still looks promising, press on. If not, reject the planned investment and save time money and opportunity cost.
4	Option Appraisal - What are my solution options and which one is best? The Option Appraisal module steps you through a pair wise comparison against strategic fit, achievability, value for money, affordability and risk to arrive at a ranked view of your solution options.
5	Business Case - Create the fully worked up case & value release profiles. Having selected the best option, the outline business case can now be developed by refining the view of value to be delivered, the amount and nature of change required to release it and the costs of both change and any new technologies required.
6	Business Case Validation - Bring those onboard who must deliver the plan. Establish, discuss and agree the key change milestones required to release the value with those that must deliver it. This assures their understanding and, if given a chance to modify to some degree the numbers, it assures their ownership.
7	Value Tracking - Pre-emptively track the delivery of agreed value. Routinely understand 'value in progress', 'value delivered' and 'value at risk'. Understand clearly the priorities for action and the value effects of changes to project plans.

Value Trading - Trade cost and value to maximise returns for budgets available.

When considering options, costs and budgets, it may be that some compromises must be made. Our value trading module allows you to simulate different scenarios to achieve the best balance of budgets and value outcomes.

Stakeholder Management - Keep all stakeholders informed and, where necessary, accountable.

Understand who has a stake together with their level of influence, interest, accountabilities and reporting needs. Manage each stakeholder's requirement through the project lifecycle.

Risk Management - Proactively manage risk

Many projects use a register to manage risk and assign a designation of high, medium and low on a monthly basis.

We don't. Because the scale, origin and release milestones are clearly understood, our Risk module allows you to assign an actual value to each risk together with active plans for its management. You will receive early warning of 'value at risk' if the likelihood of a risk occurring increases.