BOOK REVIEW
Book Title: Earned Benefit Program Management: Aligning, Realizing, and Sustaining Strategy
Author: Crispin “Kik” Piney
Publisher: CRC Press
List Price: $86.95
Format: Hardcover, 394 pagea
Publication Date: October 2017
ISBN: 9781138033122
Reviewer: Wayne Abba
Review Date: February 2020
This book addresses the area of benefits realization management for projects, programs and portfolios. It develops the concept of Earned Benefit as a numerical technique and conceptual model for linking all of the steps from program definition to benefits realization. It then applies the concepts to create a framework that integrates end-to-end planning, quantification of activity costs and benefit value, strategic optimization, dependency management, capacity planning, value-added procurement, scheduling, cost-benefit management from initiation to complete benefits realization, as well as integrating risk and issue management, and applying the framework to provide additional insights for stakeholder management along with effective information and communication management.
The book starts by clarifying the separate but complementary domains of project, program, portfolio, and operations management. It then explains the existing modelling technique based on the Benefits Realization Map (BRM).
Additional capabilities required for realistic economic modelling are then defined. These requirements lead to developing additional algorithms to support numerical analysis of the cost and the value of every node in the BRM.
The BRM and these additional evaluation algorithms are then further adapted to ensure that the technique can model real-world program characteristics such as essential dependencies and disbenefits. These techniques and concepts are applied throughout the rest of this book.
The modelling techniques are then applied to a representative case study. The results of this analysis provide a number of insights into program management as well as general management behaviour
The way in which this fully-quantified model can be used for effective, value-based contractor engagement is explained in relation to a real-life award-winning engagement.
The Earned Benefit Method (EBM) is then developed, based on the Earned Value Management (EVM) Method updated by incorporating the new, benefits-related concepts to focus on the business and directly track progress towards the strategic outcomes in terms of benefits.
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About the Reviewer
Wayne F. Abba
Michigan, USA
Wayne F. Abba is an executive advisor and principal of Abba Consulting, an independent management consulting firm based in Michigan. Mr. Abba is an internationally-recognized spokesperson for program management using Earned Value Management (EVM). With over 37 years’ experience in program analysis and a worldwide reputation as a leader in acquisition improvement, he was integrally involved in the complete reengineering of Dept. of Defense contract cost and schedule management policies and implementation and was awarded the Packard Award for Excellence in Acquisition in 1998. He retired in 1999 as Senior Program Analyst in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology. His clients have included the Social Security Administration, the Federal Aviation Administration, the Agency for International Development, the US Navy, the National Nuclear Security Administration, the National Science Foundation and several national laboratories. He was a part-time research analyst at the Center for Naval Analysis (2007-2016). He has been an advisor to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, the Government Accountability Office, the National Science Foundation and other US and foreign government agencies. Since 2007, he has been a senior program management advisor to the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration at the U.S. Department of Energy. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Graduate School Japan (2012 – present.) He is a founder and past president of the College of Performance Management, a non-profit association dedicated to the advancement of EVM and other program performance management disciplines. Wayne can be contacted at wayneabba@aol.com.
