HOW TO USE THE BENEFITS PERFORMANCE INDEX (BPI), ALSO CALLED DIPP PROGRESS INDEX IN PRIMAVERA P6

While we meticulously track schedule and cost performance, projects' Invested Value often remains unmeasured. The Benefits Performance Index (BPI) is the missing metric for demonstrating project success beyond traditional constraints.

Let’s show some paragraphs of my book, Primavera P6: Practical Scheduling & Planning, which intends to explain these missing metrics in project performance measurement.

Benefits Performance Index (BPI)

Sadly, the BPI is not part of the tracking layouts provided with Primavera P6. In the seventh edition of the PMBOK GUIDE, pages 100 and 101 have the baseline performance, which we have mentioned and described with practical-oriented examples. Still, the mention of the benefits of investment value is missing. One day, it will come. Practical Wisdom takes time to settle in the hectic world where just about everything is leveraged to gain success, remuneration, and benefits. We do not seem to have a standard for information in the investing deliverable measures. Repeating is the answer. Here, again, is the description and the explanation!

What are the Benefits of the Performance Index (BPI)

Benefits Performance Index. (BPI) It is the measure of the benefits’ efficiency, expressed as the ratio of the planned benefits to the actual benefits. The equation is BPI=PB/AB, whereby the BPI is greater than 1.0 is better than planned , exactly 1.0= is on planned benefits, and less than 1.0 is under planned benefits.

The Benefits Performance Index (BPI) monitors performance in the same manner as the Schedule Performance Index (SPI) and the Cost Performance Index (CPI).

Spending Plan and Benefits Plan in Primavera P6

Planned benefits, which represent the anticipated positive outcomes of a project, can take many forms depending on the undertaking's nature and objectives. For example, planned benefits might include enhanced operational efficiency, cost savings, revenue growth, improved customer satisfaction, life-saving medicines, or earlier use of infrastructure projects.

These benefits are typically identified during the project initiation phase and aligned with the organization's strategic goals. Accurately measuring these benefits is crucial to assessing the project's overall success and ensuring that the allocated resources yield the desired impact.

Organizations can establish benchmarks to evaluate project performance by defining clear, measurable, and planned benefits. These benchmarks provide a roadmap for stakeholders to understand the project's value proposition while enabling the comparison of actual outcomes against expectations.

Benefits monetary Value

However, Primavera P6 is a good substitute for reporting the benefits in monetary Value. You find this data in the general Project tab, which is available for every project in the database. Here, you will find the empty examples, and we have all the data available to fill the datasheet.

We have two columns, one for the spending plan and one for the benefits plan.

Budget Summary

The budget summary is, as it says, the budget summary with  Budget, Variance, Spending Plan, and Benefits Plan.

Spending Plan-Project Details

The Primavera P6 Professional P6 has this in the help section. Spending Plan: This plan specifies how much will be spent monthly. The table I used is from the example project.

This is how much is planned to be spent monthly. We use this for the spending plan, and you see the plan hereunder in the graph. We are using the budgeted costs, including the cost margins, as defined during the final risk calculation. The contingency is not part of the Spending plan. Would you happen to follow me? This may differ in every organization, but in my work experience, the project sponsor or director manages the contingency. On the other hand, the 73,000.00 euro cost margin is managed by the project manager and his team and kept up-to-date by the project controller or the scheduler. Let go and do this!

It is nice to see this work. However, it is still cumbersome and challenging to do it flawlessly, but it is done. Note that the budget is more than the spending plan.

Benefit Plan: Shows a profit portion of the monthly amount; benefit values are usually entered at the end of a project. You can see the benefit plan in the screenshot above.

Budget Summary

Hereunder, you see the Budget summary. I have inserted and set "approved" for the budget to be added to the project. It is good practice not to begin without a budget. The project should only commence when the project sponsor has given the authorization to proceed and the budget to start. This can, of course, be done in stages.

So, we see 159,911.00 euros as benefits as planned for this project. This is the start of the project, and I can assure you that the spending and the budget will change many times when we update and start tracking them.

 Benefits Performance Index( BP) in Excel

It's also possible to download the data to Excel and Power BI to create performance layouts. I use a standard reporting format developed some years ago, and let me demonstrate this later.

Jan van den Berg

May .25

Jan Willem Tromp Stephen Devaux