APMG Managing Benefits Practitioner

Managing Benefits provides managers and practitioners from multiple disciplines, working in a wide variety of organizations, with generally applicable guidance encompassing benefits management principles, practices and techniques that enable organizations to optimize the return from their investments in change.

The course is relevant to all sectors and types of project or programme, or what the Managing Benefits guide refers to as 'change initiatives'.

Target Audience

The target audience includes all those involved in the selection and delivery of business change initiatives, as well as the realization of benefits from these change initiatives. This multi-disciplinary group includes:

• Change leaders (e.g. senior responsible owners & directors of change)
• Change initiators (e.g. strategic planners and policy leads)
• Change appraisers and evaluators (e.g. business case developers and project appraisers)
• Change implementers/enablers (e.g. portfolio, programme & project managers)
• Change support staff (e.g. portfolio, programme & project office staff)
• Business Case writers and project appraisers

Please note: Delegates are to have attained a pass at foundation level before attending this course. For the Foundation course, please see our course code PBPMBF

Prerequisites

• All learners are expected to have their personal copy of ‘Managing Benefits (3rd edition)’ which is needed for the course. You will have received this as part of your study for the APMG Managing Benefits Foundation qualification. If you have joined the Practitioner course via one of the alternative qualification routes, you will need to purchase your own copy of the manual.

• You will need to provide evidence that you have passed your Foundation examination prior to sitting your Practitioner examination. Please bring your candidate number and/or certificate to your course to show the invigilator. If you cannot provide your candidate number and/or certificate, please contact us on +44 (0)1793 696135

• There is no formal pre-reading for this event however; students should full re-familiarise themselves with the managing benefits guide. In fact, we would recommend that students return to a level they felt appropriate if they were to take the foundation exam again at 9 o'clock on the first day.

• Delegates must bring photographic identification with them on exam days (passport, driving license, or works pass) as it is an examination requirement to produce it for the invigilator prior to the exam. Failure to produce a valid form of photographic identification may result in a candidate not being able to sit the exams. For any questions about what form of identification is acceptable, please contact your Account Manager or the QA Examination Administration team on +44 (0)1793 696273 or info@qa.com

• Additional work will be required during evening consisting of consolidation reading and a mock examination. This evening work is an integral part of the course and delegates should expect to spend 2-4 hours each evening on these activities.

This Practitioner level course aims to enable delegates to apply and understand how to tailor Managing Benefits effectively. Specifically delegates should be able to demonstrate their ability to:

• Plan the implementation of benefits management, select appropriate strategies to sustain and measure progress
• Select and adapt the principles, practices and techniques to suit different organizational contexts
• Apply activities that should be undertaken during each of the practices of the Benefits Management Cycle together with the accountabilities and responsibilities of each of the defined roles
• Evaluate examples of benefits management information (documents)
• Analyse the solutions adopted in relation to a given scenario

All delegates will be given the opportunity to sit the Managing Benefits Practitioner examination in the afternoon of the second day of the course. The Managing Benefits Practitioner exam consists of:

• 80 multiple choice questions
• 2½ hours
• Open-book
• Candidates require a minimum of 40 correct answers (50%) to pass.

Module One: Practitioner Exam Overview

Explains the format and expected content of the exam. Working as a group, we present and discuss typical questions in each of the possible question styles.

Module Two: The Benefits Management Principles

Discusses the application of the seven enabling factors or principles that represent the solid foundations upon which effective benefits management is built. Additionally we shall analyse and distinguish between their appropriate and inappropriate use in a given scenario situations. The principals are:

• Align benefits with strategy
• Start with the end in mind
• Utilise successful delivery methods
• Integrate benefits with performance management
• Manage benefits from a portfolio perspective
• Apply effective governance
• Develop a value culture

Module Three: Benefits Management Practice 1 - Identify & Quantify

The objective of this first practice is to lay the basis for informed options analysis, investment appraisal, and portfolio prioritisation.

We shall discuss various approaches to identifying benefits including: benefits discovery workshops, benefits mapping and customer insight, as well as forecasting benefits. Additionally we shall look at some of the problems, issues, and fallacies typically faced and appropriate solutions.

Module Four: Benefits Management Practice 2 - Value & Appraise

Once identified and quantified we look at why organizations value benefits in monetary terms; various approaches to valuing non-financial benefits in monetary terms; the main approaches to initiative appraisal cost-benefit, real options, cost-effectiveness and multi-criteria analysis; and the role of value management techniques. Here we shall do practical exercises to check understanding of the application of the various techniques.

Module Five: Benefits Management Practice 3 - Plan

Planning covers approaches to validating benefits; prioritizing benefits; managing the pre-transition phase; selecting benefits measures; benefits risk and opportunity management; planning effective stakeholder engagement; and an overview of the main initiative-level benefits management documentation used in planning for benefits realization, and who prepares and maintains them. We shall discuss the various roles, responsibilities, and documentation required of a sound benefits management environment.

Module Six: Benefits Management Practice 4 - Realize

Benefits seldom just happen, there needs to be transition management; tracking and reporting, including surveys; and approaches to effective stakeholder engagement to win hearts as well as minds, and so deliver the behavioural change upon which benefits realization is often dependent.

Module Seven: Benefits Management Practice 5 - Review

The final practice looks at the importance of review as a basis for learning and continuous improvement before, during and after the initiative.

Module Eight: Portfolio-based application of Benefits Management

Addresses why portfolio-based benefits management is so important and its main elements. The portfolio is a permanent function within organisations and manages benefits before and after change initiatives, as well as their individual and collective performance.

Module Nine: Implementing and sustaining progress

Successful benefits management is embedded into the culture of organisation. In this module we look at how to get started with implementing benefits management, and how to sustain progress, including measuring impact and maturity.

APMG-International Managing Benefits is a trade mark of The APM Group Limited