Benefits realisation in an agile environment

Success frameworks from an information systems and project perspective include benefits realisation as a measure of success. Research highlights benefits are not realised resulting in low IT project success rates. Benefits realisation intrinsically forms part of agile as benefits are delivered frequently to customers resulting in higher success rates. What is not known, is to what extent organisations, that are scaling agile, are implementing benefits realisation management to improve the success rates of their IT projects. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine experts from organisations that adopted a scaled agile framework. The results show that benefits realisation is performed unsystematically, and the success of IT projects is attributed to the agile approach and not to BRM. Twelve principles were identified to facilitate agile BRM and ultimately improve project success. This article provides new insights into the BRM debate through its novel approach of linking agile, BRM and project success.