Soft Benefits

Business analyses depend on quantitative results that can be demonstrated and calculated from data. There are often qualitative results that may be important in certain situations. For example, many businesses use customer satisfaction surveys to gauge their relationships with the market. Improvements in customer satisfaction are important, although they may not be directly connected to specific business metrics. Surveys of internal IT customers may also indicate improvements after a project is completed.

Improvement in management staff retention frequently results from projects that implement better management tools and processes. Staff is freed from repetitive lower-level tasks and can spend more time focusing on more challenging and valuable tasks.

Soft results, while not to be ignored, must be regarded skeptically, particularly because it is easy to predict optimistic outcomes for productivity enhancements. Working closely with customers to identify priorities for investment can help sharpen focus on tradeoffs. Similarly, collaboration with human resources and finance organizations can help establish consensus and buyoff where numbers alone don't tell the whole story.