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Sigma Magic Help Version 15

Benefit Effort Plot

Overview

Benefit Effort Plot can be used to visually represent the placement of different initiatives on a benefit-effort scale. Either the benefits or the efforts are shown on the X-axis and the other variable is shown on the Y-axis. By looking at the placement of the initiatives, you can select the best initiatives to implement. For example, you may first want to select those initiatives that have a high benefit and low effort. You may want to avoid the initiatives that have a low benefit and high effort. For the remaining two quadrants (high benefit & high effort) and (low benefit & low effort) you will have to make a business decision and how you would like to address these initiatives. This would depend on the number of improvements you are looking for and the time and cost estimates of these initiatives.

This tool can be added to your active workbook by clicking on Project and then selecting Benefit Effort Plot.

Inputs

Click on Analysis Setup to open the menu options for this tool.

Setup

A sample screenshot of the setup menu is shown below.
Benefit Effort Dialog Box
1
Rating Scale: You can specify your benefits and efforts on a 0-5 scale, 0-10 scale, or 0-100 scale. Make sure to pick the scale that best meets your needs and also enter the numbers of the worksheet within this range. For example, if you pick the 0-10 scale then a low benefit will be in the range of 0-2 and very high benefits will be in the range 9-10. Similarly, rate the effort and risk as appropriate.
2
Num Tasks: Specify the number of tasks that you want to create the Benefit-Effort plot for. This information is used to reformat your worksheet and create a table for data entry. Note that any data below this table will be cleared.
3
X Variable: Specify if you would like to view the benefits on the X-axis or the efforts on the X-axis. Your analysis results are not altered by this selection - this is just for visualization only.
4
Num Groups: Specify the number of groups to display the bubble chart. If you pick 1 group, then all effort and benefits are treated on-par. Any project with benefits greater than effort will be assigned a priority of 1 and the other projects are assigned a priority of 2. If you specify two groups, the graph is broken up into two regions Low and High for Benefits and Low and High for Effort. All projects where the benefits is greater than the effort are rated a priority of 1. If the benefit and efforts are similar, it is assigned a priority of 2 else it will be priority 3. If you specify 3 groups, the chart will be broken up into Low, Medium and High and the priority rating will range from 1-5. Priority 1 for projects where benefits are significantly higher than effort, priority 2 for benefits higher than effort, priority 3 for benefits equal to effort, priority 4 where benefits are worse than effort and priority 5 for benefits significantly worse than effort.
5
View Example: Click on this button to open the example file. You can view the example to get an idea of how to fill out this tool or you can use the example as a starting point and modify it to meet your project needs.
6
Help Button: Click on this button to view the help file for this topic.
7
Cancel Button: Click on this button to cancel any changes and exit this dialog box.
8
OK Button: Click on this button to save any changes you have made and compute the analysis outputs if possible.

Worksheet

Enter the following information in the worksheet:
  • Enter the initiative number. You can usually use numeric values 1, 2, 3, etc. or you can name each initiative using an alpha-numeric string like "IN01" etc. These values are shown on the graph.
  • Enter a brief description of the initiative. This is a one-line description of the initiative to describe the idea to other stakeholders.
  • Enter a number for the estimated benefits of this initiative on the appropriate scale. A benefit close to 0 would be low, while a benefit close to the maximum value would be very high. You will need to ensure that all initiatives have relatively the same scale when you rank the initiatives.
  • Enter a number for the estimated efforts of each initiative on the appropriate scale. An effort close to 0 would be low Or easy to implement while an effort close to the maximum value would be difficult to implement. Make sure that all the initiatives are ranked on a similar scale.
  • If you have specified the risk column, enter the information of risk for each initiative. A risk value close to 0 would be low risk while a risk value close to the maximum value would be high risk.

Charts

If you click on the Charts button, you will see the following dialog box. Charts
1
Title: The system will automatically pick a title for your chart. However, if you would like to override that with your own title you can specify a title for your chart here. Note that this input is optional.
2
Sub Title: The system will automatically pick a subtitle for your chart. However, if you would like to override that with your own subtitle you can specify a subtitle for your chart here. Note that this input is optional.
3
X Label: The system will automatically pick a label for the x-axis. However, if you would like to override that with your own label for the x-axis you can specify a different label here. Note that this input is optional.
4
Y Label: The system will automatically pick a label for the y-axis. However, if you would like to override that with your own label for the y-axis you can specify a different label here. Note that this input is optional.
5
X Axis: The system will automatically pick a scale for the x-axis. However, if you would like to override that with your values for the x-axis, you can specify them here. The format for this input is to specify the minimum, increment, and maximum values separated by a semi-colon. For example, if you specify 10;20 then the minimum x-axis scale is set at 10 and the maximum x-axis scale is set at 20. If you specify 10;2;20, then, in addition to minimum and maximum values, the x-axis increment is set at 2. Note that this input is currently disabled and you will not be able to change this setting.
6
Y Axis: The system will automatically pick a scale for the y-axis. However, if you would like to override that with your values for the y-axis, you can specify them here. The format for this input is to specify the minimum, increment, and maximum values separated by a semi-colon. For example, if you specify 10;20 then the minimum y-axis scale is set at 10 and the maximum y-axis scale is set at 20. If you specify 10;2;20, then, in addition to minimum and maximum values, the y-axis increment is set at 2. Note that this input is currently disabled and you will not be able to change this setting.
7
Horizontal Lines: If you want to add a few extra horizontal reference lines on top of your chart you can specify the values here. The format for this input is numeric values separated by semi-colon. For example, if you specify 12;15 then two horizontal lines are plotted at Y = 12 and Y = 15 respectively. Note that this input is currently disabled and you will not be able to change this setting.
8
Vertical Lines: If you want to add a few extra vertical reference lines on top of your chart you can specify the values here. The format for this input is numeric values separated by semi-colon. For example, if you specify 2;5 then two vertical lines are plotted at X = 2 and X = 5 respectively. Note that this input is currently disabled and you will not be able to change this setting.

Verify

If you click on the Verify button, the software will perform some checks on the data you have entered. A sample screenshot of the dialog box is shown in the figure below. Verify The objective of this analysis as well as any checks that are performed is listed in this dialog box. For example, the software may check if you have correctly specified the input options and entered the required data on the worksheet. The results of the analysis checks are listed on the right. If the checks are passed, then they are shown as a green-colored checkmark. If the verification checks fail, then they are shown as a red-colored cross. If the verification checks result in a warning, they are shown in the orange color exclamation mark and finally, any checks that are required to be performed by the user are shown as blue info icons.

Outputs

Click on Compute Outputs to update the output calculations. A sample screenshot of the worksheet is shown below.
Benefit Effort Example You can visually view each of the initiatives on the chart. If all the initiatives are clustered in one quadrant then the scaling you have used for the benefit and effort may be too wide. You will need to use a narrower scale and re-do the values for benefits & efforts. Once you have a chart with a reasonably good spread of the initiatives across multiple quadrants, you can use this chart to make decisions on which initiatives you would like to select for implementation. First, select those initiatives that have a high benefit and low effort. Next, pick those initiatives that have a high benefit and high effort if you are willing to spend the efforts to realize these high benefits. Third, you would like to pick the low effort and low benefits initiatives if you would like to capture even minimal improvements. Finally, you may want to ignore those initiatives that have low benefits and high efforts. You can use this chart to explain the logic for the selected initiatives you have chosen to select for your project.

Notes

Here are a few pointers regarding this analysis:
  • If you don't like the distribution of the benefit effort plot due to overlap of the entities, you may want to alter the benefit, effort values a bit so that the overlap is minimized. You can also consider changing the risk values to a different scale so that the bubble sizes can be controlled.

Examples

Following examples can be found in the Examples folder.
  • Select a project that you are currently working on and develop a Benefit Effort Plot for the same (Benefit Effort 2.xlsm).