Projects are approved on promised benefits and closed on delivered scope. The gap between those two\nsentences is why organizations repeat expensive mistakes with confidence.
\nA benefit that cannot fail to be claimed is not a benefit. Each needs a measure, a current baseline,\na target, a date by which it should appear, and an owner who is accountable after the project\ncloses — usually the operational owner, not the project manager, who has moved on.
\nDistinguish honestly:
\nThe most common failure is a business case padded with non-cashable savings presented as though the\nbudget will fall. It will not, and the credibility loss lands on the next case.
\nA baseline captured after go-live is not a baseline. Measure first, and record how it was measured —\nby the time anyone checks, the method will be disputed and nobody will remember.
\nBenefits appear months after delivery, when the project team has dispersed and attention has moved.\nThis is precisely why it does not happen, and why it needs to be owned by the operational line and\nscheduled at approval rather than intended.
\nSet review points at meaningful intervals — ninety days, six months, a year — and hold them\nregardless of what the answer looks like.
\nTwo questions: did the benefits appear, and would we make the same decision knowing what we now know?
\nInclude estimation accuracy, since the systematic bias in an organization's estimates is one of the\nmost useful things it can know about itself and is discoverable only by looking back.
\nMake it non-punitive or it will produce nothing true. A review that damages careers produces reviews\nthat say the project was a success. Feed the findings back to\npmo:portfolio-governance and finance:capital-allocation, which are where the next set of\napprovals gets made.