Benefits realisation
Connects each initiative to the line in the accounts it is meant to move, and keeps checking. Most programmes report activity for two years and never establish whether the money arrived.
The printable canvas and the handoff into Claude Code are part of a paid plan. See what a plan includes. It needs the Claude desktop app on this machine, and your team and the prompt library already installed in that project — we cannot see your disk, so open it there.
What it is
The discipline of tracking whether the benefits a business case promised actually arrive, in the accounts, on the timeline claimed. Each benefit gets a measurable baseline before delivery starts, a named owner outside the delivery team, and a profile showing when it should appear — so a shortfall is visible while there is still time to act on it.
- The benefit map
- Each initiative linked to the specific line it moves. An initiative that cannot be linked to one is either overhead or unjustified, and it is worth finding out which.
- The baseline
- Measured before anything changes. Baselines reconstructed afterwards always flatter the programme, and everybody involved knows it.
- The profile
- When the benefit appears, month by month. A benefit with no profile is invariably reported as on track right up until the year it was due.
- The benefit owner
- Someone in the business carrying the number in their own budget, separate from whoever delivers the change. Without this the programme marks its own homework.
- Claimed against banked
- What has been declared against what has shown up in the accounts. The gap between those two columns is the single most useful number in programme governance.
- Double counting
- Two initiatives claiming the same saving. It is extremely common, and it is why programme benefits routinely exceed the entire cost base of the department they came from.
How you run it
- Map every benefit to a line in the accountsIf nobody can name the line, the benefit is not real yet. That conversation is uncomfortable and it is the entire point of the exercise.
- Baseline before you startMeasure it now, while nobody has an interest in the number. A baseline set after delivery begins is negotiated rather than measured.
- Give each benefit an owner in the businessNot in the programme. Someone whose own budget carries the number, so that banking it is in their interest rather than in the programme's.
- Profile it month by monthWhen should this appear, and in what shape. A benefit without a profile stays green until the day it was due and goes red the day after.
- Report claimed against banked, every monthTwo columns and the difference between them. Every other programme metric can be argued with; this one cannot.
The prompt
Run this tool in your own Claude
The short prompt starts your partner against the library on your disk. The long one carries everything with it and needs nothing installed.
Your playbook
It lands in the earliest stage this tool suits. Move it on the Playbook page.
You’ll need
- The approved business case and the benefits it claimed
- A baseline for each benefit, measured before anything changes
- A named owner for each benefit who is not the person delivering it
You’ll end up with
- Every benefit mapped to a line in the P&L or the balance sheet
- A baseline, a month-by-month profile and an owner for each
- A monthly view of claimed against banked, with the gap explained