@misc{18203,
  author = {Jose Pat{\'o}n-Romero and Bertha Ngereja and Jo Hannay and Magne J{\o}rgensen},
  title = {Actual Practices from Practitioners in Benefits Management in Digitalization Projects},
  abstract = {One of the areas within project management that is increasingly resonating in the IT professionals{\textquoteright} minds is benefits management. Anecdotal evidence suggests that recent guidelines for the identification, monitoring/tracking, and realization of benefits (and disbenefits) have not always been applied as intended. Indeed, the intentions in such guidelines may not even be clear, leading practitioners to be confused as to how to implement benefits management in their organizations.Hence, we decided to analyze the actual practices applied by practitioners in the identification and estimation of benefits in digitalization projects, with the aim to identify potential handicaps and challenges that can be addressed to improve the definition and practice of benefits management. To this end, we performed a thematic (qualitative) analysis of twenty-nine interviews conducted with several practitioners on the planning, quality assurance, execution, and implementation of twenty-two digitalization projects in the public sector in Norway.The results and findings demonstrate shortcomings in the application of the basic concepts of benefits management in digitalization projects, as well as a need to formulate the guidelines and templates that these projects should follow in a more detailed and clear manner. Therefore, the definition, application, and evaluation/assessment of practices, such as the involvement of stakeholders and end users, the establishment of clear and concise concepts, the standardization of a more transparent and traceable estimation process, among others, must be enhanced in existing guidelines and promoted more strongly and consistently to obtain an efficient and effective degree of performance and maturity in benefits management.},
  year = {2025},
  journal = {29th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering (EASE 2025)},
  month = {06/2025},
  publisher = {ACM},
}