Benefits Realisation

3Developing the Purpose

You will not find many people who think the purpose of a project is insignificant. On the other hand, it is not easy to agree on what a purpose consists of for a specific project.

I often ask the question: ‘What is the purpose of the project?’ to project managers and benefit owners. Every other time, I get the answer: ‘The purpose of the project is to produce [insert technical deliverable].’ I want to make it clear right away: the purpose is never to develop a new IT system, process, product, or other forms of technical deliverables. Instead, the purpose of a project is to help the organisation realise part of its strategy. So, for a project to be considered part of the organisation's portfolio, it must create value that helps it realise its strategic goals.

The Project's Contribution to the Strategy

Figure 3.1 shows the connection between an organisation's strategic purposes and the purposes that each project contributes to realising. Each project can have one or more purposes, and in the figure each project contributes to realising the overall strategy, which is called ‘strategic purposes’. The figure is simplified, as a project in some cases contributes to several strategic purposes, while in others there may be levels of purposes between the project level and the strategic level.

Figure 3.1 The connection between project purposes and strategic ...