Use of Benefits Management Methodologies

The request was successful.

Dear Medical Research Council,

I am writing to you under a Freedom of Information Act request regarding the use of structured benefits management methodologies.

For clarity, all the following questions relate to benefits management as defined by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC): “the identification, definition, tracking, realisation and optimisation of benefits, usually within a programme”.

Could you please provide me with responses to the following questions set out below?

1. Do you currently or have you in the past used structured benefits management methodologies when delivering a programme, including any of the following?
• Benefits Realisation Management (Bradley, 2006, OGC, 2004)
• The Cranfield Process Model of Benefits Management (Ward et al., 1996)
• Management of Value (OGC, 2010)
• Active Benefits Realisation (Remenyi & Sherwood-Smith, 1998)

2. What is the most commonly used method and why is this method used rather than any of the other methods available?

3. Do you have a benefits management centre of excellence?

4. Do you have a specialist benefits management resource? Please indicate whether this is a permanent or contingent resource.

5. Does your organisation have a centrally managed and consistent framework, with established processes, for defining and tracking benefits realisation?

6. To what extent are business requirements linked to and influenced by benefits?

7. On a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 is not embedded at all and 9 is thoroughly embedded, how well embedded is benefits management within programme management and the development of organisational strategies?

8. Please provide a sample of completed benefits management products, specifically:
• Benefits maps
• Benefits registers
• Benefits management strategies
• Benefits realisation plans
• Benefits profiles

9. If you do not use a structured benefits management approach, please provide a reason as to why this decision has been taken.

Thank you in advance for providing this information and I look forward to receiving your reply within the statutory time limit of 20 working days.

Yours faithfully,

James Crutchley

Dear Mr Crutchley,

 

Thank you for your correspondence of 31 January in which you have asked
about the use of benefits management methodologies in the Medical Research
Council (MRC).

 

You wrote to the MRC under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), however
I am writing to you to inform you that your correspondence does not fall
within the remit of the FOIA as your questions are about the use of
benefits management methodologies rather than recorded information. Your
request will therefore be handled as regular correspondence, this will not
impact on the response time and we will certainly respond within 20
working days as we would for a FOIA request.

 

Section 1 of the FOIA states that:

(1) Any person making a request for information to a public authority is
entitled –

(a)      To be informed in writing by the public authority whether it
holds information of the description specified in the request, and

(b)      If that is the case, to have that information communicated to
him.

 

Section 84 of the FOIA clarifies that ‘information’ means information
recorded in any form.

 

We will respond to your questions shortly, in the meantime please do let
me know if you have any queries.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

Tiffany

 

Tiffany Lay

Senior Information Officer

Medical Research Council

 

Visit our website at: [1]www.mrc.ac.uk

Visit our blog at: [2]www.insight.mrc.ac.uk

Follow us on Twitter at: [3]http://twitter.com/MRCcomms

 

P Please print this email only if necessary

     Dear Medical Research Council,

    

     I am writing to you under a Freedom of Information Act request

     regarding the use of structured benefits management methodologies.

    

     For clarity, all the following questions relate to benefits

     management as defined by the Office of Government Commerce (OGC):

     “the identification, definition, tracking, realisation and

     optimisation of benefits, usually within a programme”.

    

     Could you please provide me with responses to the following

     questions set out below?

    

     1. Do you currently or have you in the past used structured

     benefits management methodologies when delivering a programme,

     including any of the following?

     • Benefits Realisation Management (Bradley, 2006, OGC, 2004)

     • The Cranfield Process Model of Benefits Management (Ward et al.,

     1996)

     • Management of Value (OGC, 2010)

     • Active Benefits Realisation (Remenyi & Sherwood-Smith, 1998)

    

     2. What is the most commonly used method and why is this method

     used rather than any of the other methods available?

    

     3. Do you have a benefits management centre of excellence?

    

     4. Do you have a specialist benefits management resource? Please

     indicate whether this is a permanent or contingent resource.

    

     5. Does your organisation have a centrally managed and consistent

     framework, with established processes, for defining and tracking

     benefits realisation?

    

     6. To what extent are business requirements linked to and

     influenced by benefits?

    

     7. On a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 is not embedded at all and 9 is

     thoroughly embedded, how well embedded is benefits management

     within programme management and the development of organisational

     strategies?

    

     8. Please provide a sample of completed benefits management

     products, specifically:

     • Benefits maps

     • Benefits registers

     • Benefits management strategies

     • Benefits realisation plans

     • Benefits profiles

    

     9. If you do not use a structured benefits management approach,

     please provide a reason as to why this decision has been taken.

    

     Thank you in advance for providing this information and I look

     forward to receiving your reply within the statutory time limit of

     20 working days.

    

     Yours faithfully,

    

     James Crutchley

    

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Dear Mr Crutchely,

 

Further to my e-mail of 04 February in which I informed you that I would
be taking your request forwards as regular correspondence, please find the
answers to your questions below.

 

1. Do you currently or have you in the past used structured benefits
management methodologies when delivering a programme?

The Medical Research Council (MRC) is a publicly-funded organisation
dedicated to improving human health.  The MRC support research across the
entire spectrum of medical sciences, in universities and hospitals, in our
own units, centres and institutes
([1]http://www.mrc.ac.uk/Ourresearch/Unitsce...) in
the UK, and in our units in Africa.

 

Although the MRC increasingly uses the formal recording, tracking and
measuring of benefits, the use of generic models and approaches is not
considered suitable for the wide range of research programmes.  In order
to judge the quality of the science carried out, the MRC has developed a
programme tracking scientist’s activities and publications and can assess
in this way the benefits of the investments into the science, however, due
to the variety of influencing factors, one generally cannot track this
back to specific investments.

 

On estates projects (construction, refurbishments, etc.) the benefit
measurement is used to track the initial justifications of the business
cases for the project.

 

 

2. What is the most commonly used method and why is this method used
rather than any of the other methods available?

As part of the business cases put forward for approval of funding for
projects, the units /departments have to identify the benefits that the
project will bring to the organisation.   More often than not these are
benefits that are difficult to measure (soft benefits or relevance to
academic progression, academic standing, etc.).  Consequently, there needs
to be a flexible system, which suits the needs of the different projects
(Research, Estates,  IT,  Change, etc.).

 

We believe that the approach we are taking is suitable, and pursue and
develop this further based on feedback and “lessons learned” from each
project.

    

 

3. Do you have a benefits management centre of excellence?

No, but the Directorate Major Projects emphasises the benefits
measurement in its own projects (large ones reviewed by OGC) and is
working to widen  this to the other processes in the organisation.

 

    

4. Do you have a specialist benefits management resource? Please indicate
whether this is a permanent or contingent resource.

We have individuals, who are familiar with the identification and
measurement of benefits in the MRC’s context. These individuals are
permanent staff. On large projects additional resource may be employed to
focus on the benefits tracking and measurement.

 

    

5. Does your organisation have a centrally managed and consistent
framework, with established processes, for defining and tracking benefits
realisation?

The Directorate Major Projects has developed Project Management Guidance,
which features benefit identification, definition and measurement. We
encourage our staff involved in projects to qualify for PRINCE2 foundation
or practitioner, which provides structure to the benefit management.

 

As previously stated, the model has to be very flexible and the
Directorate provides support to projects and units in this subject.

 

    

6. To what extent are business requirements linked to and influenced by
benefits?

As previously stated, the main concern of the MRC is  biomedical research
and all of our activities are aimed to improve the research in our units
and institutes. The business requirements are the issues that need to be
fulfilled to achieve this and this is set out in the relevant business
cases or strategic organisational decisions.

 

    

7. On a scale of 1 to 9, where 1 is not embedded at all and 9 is
thoroughly embedded, how well embedded is benefits management within
programme management and the development of organisational strategies?

Science – 2 however, as noted above the use of generic models and
approaches is not considered suitable for the wide range of research
programmes

Estates & major Projects - 7

    

 

8. Please provide a sample of completed benefits management products.

Please see the attached template.

 

    

9. If you do not use a structured benefits management approach, please
provide a reason as to why this decision has been taken.

The MRC is at an early stage in changing the approach to benefits
management and although we are promoting a structural approach, it will
take some time until this is completely embedded in all of the project and
programme activities of the MRC.

 

 

You may find it useful to look at the work of the National Audit Office
(NAO) who reviewed the benefits realisation as part of their Gateway Audit
process as part of their Gateway process for the RCUK programme.  These
audits are available on the web.

 

I hope that you find this information useful.

 

Yours Sincerely,

 

Tiffany

 

Tiffany Lay

Senior Information Officer

Knowledge and Information Management Team

Medical Research Council

 

Visit our website at: [2]www.mrc.ac.uk

Visit our blog at: [3]www.insight.mrc.ac.uk

Follow us on Twitter at: [4]http://twitter.com/MRCcomms

 

P Please print this email only if necessary

 

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