Benefit Mapping: The art of translating the organization’s strategy into concrete implementation steps

Benefit Mapping is a strategic exercise that makes it possible to bridge the gap between strategy definition and strategy realization. It serves to translate the organization’s strategy into concrete implementation steps, linking goals, relating benefits and KPIs to new capabilities, and contributing projects. The alignment helps to guarantee that activities at every level are driven by the strategic goals and objectives of the organization, reducing resource waste and improving overall returns.

1. Bridging the gap between strategy and execution

Benefit mapping addresses the common problem of organizations struggling to translate their strategic plans into concrete actions by providing a structured way to link high-level goals to specific projects and initiatives, ensuring alignment between what the organization wants to achieve and what it actually does.

2. Bringing clarity to value creation

Benefit mapping forces the definition of specific, measurable benefits and links them directly to strategic goals, making the value proposition of each project explicit and helping organizations that struggle to clearly articulate the intended benefits of their projects and initiatives.

3. Straight forward prioritization and resource allocation

With limited resources, organizations need a way to prioritize projects that deliver the highest value. By prioritizing benefits and the associated projects, benefit mapping helps allocate resources to initiatives that have the most significant impact on strategic goals.

4. Effective monitoring and evaluation

Without clear metrics and tracking mechanisms, it’s challenging to assess whether projects are delivering the intended benefits. Benefit mapping promotes the definition of KPIs and sets the stage for ongoing monitoring and evaluation of benefit realization, enabling data-driven decision-making and course correction.

5. Ensuring stakeholder alignment and commitment

Misaligned understanding of goals and benefits can lead to confusion and lack of commitment from stakeholders. The collaborative nature of benefit mapping, involving stakeholders from different levels, fosters a shared understanding and increases buy-in for the chosen strategic direction.

1. Identify strategic goals

Benefit mapping starts with the strategic plan of an organization. In workshop sessions with top management, the strategic goals and overall direction of the organization are identified and serve as the start of a benefit map.

2. Identify benefits related to each strategic goal

To get a clear understanding of the desired value creation path for each strategic goal, the related benefits are determined for each strategic goal defined in the initial step. This involves asking, “How will achieving this strategic goal add value?”. Benefits can be financial, observable, quantifiable, or measurable.

Once the benefits are identified, they are prioritized based on their relative importance to the strategic goal. This helps in focusing on the most impactful benefits. The identified and prioritized benefits are then added to the benefit map, visually linking them to their corresponding strategic goals. For each benefit, a detailed profile is created in the benefit register.

3. Define smart KPIs to evaluate benefits

For each benefit identified in the previous step, it is determined how to measure its success. As a rule of thumb, these metrics should be SMART, meaning Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. This ensures that the KPIs are well-defined, trackable, and meaningful in the context of the benefit they are measuring.

Once the metrics are defined, they are added to the benefit map to visually link them to their corresponding benefits, setting the stage for tracking and monitoring the realization of benefits throughout the project or initiative.

4. Identify capabilities and projects

This stage of the benefit mapping process focuses on pinpointing the specific capabilities the organization needs to develop or enhance, as well as the projects or initiatives required to realize each benefit. This is a collaborative effort involving key stakeholders from different levels of the organization to gain a comprehensive perspective.

Thanks to the incorporation and prioritization of the identified capabilities and projects, the benefit map now has a visual demonstration of their connection to the relevant benefits. This creates a clear visual representation and a comprehensive inventory of prioritized capabilities and projects directly linked to the desired benefits.

Successfully completing the fourth step leaves the organization with a ready-to-use Benefit Map. The strategic exercise has resulted in a strong visual communication tool to be used to present the final outcome to the different stakeholders across the whole organization. This ensures everyone is aligned and understands the strategic goals, the benefits linked to them, and the planned capabilities and projects.

With the prioritized capabilities and projects identified, another logical step is to transition the realized Benefit Map into Portfolio Management. Informing decisions about which projects to initiate or prioritize within the overall portfolio, aligning resources effectively based on the prioritized projects and capabilities identified, and regularly reviewing and adjusting the portfolio based on the strategic goals, realized benefits, and changing market conditions.

In essence, the benefit map serves as a visual and strategic tool to guide decision-making, implementation, and performance measurement, ultimately leading to successful strategy execution. Helping organizations that struggle with projects that fail to deliver the planned benefits or are delivering projects that don’t contribute to the strategy, leading to misalignment with business strategy, inefficient implementation of change, and wasted resources.

A Benefit Mapping exercise will help you to:

1. Better align your organization’s project portfolio with the strategic goals
2. Select the components that deliver the optimal value to your organization
3. Monitor the strategy realization of your organization and update your portfolio where applicable

Successful benefit mapping requires expertise and experience to navigate the complexities of strategic alignment, stakeholder management, benefit articulation, KPI development, and change management.

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