When renewal comes, I want to show the system earns its keep, so it is not cut simply because nobody measured what it does.

Job context

Who

Whoever must defend a system's budget

When

Before each budget cycle

Trigger

Being asked what the system delivers

Situation

The benefit lands across several departments

Constraints

Must speak in numbers about something nobody measured from the start

5 Pains

• Nobody measured the state before the rollout

  High

  So there is nothing to compare against.

  Root cause: Baseline measurement is in no project plan

• The benefit lands in another department

  High

  While the invoice is booked to yours.

  Root cause: Management accounting attributes cost per department

• Time saved cannot be turned into money

  High

  Because nobody was cut.

  Root cause: Time saved becomes money only when someone leaves

• Compared against spending with direct revenue

  Medium

  In the same ranking table.

  Root cause: All spending is ranked in one table regardless of kind

• The best outcome is that nothing happened

  Medium

  So there is nothing to present.

  Root cause: Prevention produces no event to report

5 Desired Outcomes

• Have a baseline from before the rollout

  Functional

• Have the benefit booked where it actually lands

  Functional

• Turn the benefit into a financial number

  Functional

• Be judged against the right class of spending

  Social

• Be able to present what did not happen

  Social

5 Existing Solutions

A solution is not the same thing as a product, a customer can hire a behaviour or a workaround too.

• Write a value case

  Workaround

  The required language, with numbers that are guesses about the past.

• Ask users what it does for them

  Behaviour

  The truest source, and it does not become a number.

• Take usage data from the provider

  Product

  Available and persuasive-looking, measuring activity rather than value.

• Find a sponsor in the department that benefits

  Behaviour

  The most effective route, resting on relationships rather than data.

• Turn it off briefly

  Workaround

  The most convincing evidence of value, and a gamble.

2 Opportunity Gaps

• Proving value requires a baseline from before the rollout, and no project spends effort measuring the old state, because at that moment nobody is thinking about having to prove anything.

  Why existing solutions fail: The pre-rollout period is when everyone is persuading each other the project is worth doing, and an honest measurement then might sink it, so the very motive that starts a project is what leaves it unmeasurable afterwards.

  Potential opportunity: Requiring a measurement of the current state as an approval step, before anything is signed.

• The cost is booked to the department that bought the system and the benefit lands in the departments using it, so the value case is always negative in the exact column the budget holder reads.

  Why existing solutions fail: Management accounting is designed to attribute spending to departments, and that design makes every shared system look like one department's loss, an artefact of the bookkeeping rather than of the value.

  Potential opportunity: Booking the benefit in the receiving department and tying it back to the spend, so the comparison has two sides.