BVMF, game-changing route to higher project success rates

BVMF® is a framework that helps to raise the likelihood of a project’s success and the level of value and ROI arising. This is against the last several decades of a persistent 75% global failure rate for projects to meet customer expectations. BVMF brings the ‘Why’, the whole point of the endeavour, to the fore, and then, keeps it there!

Intrinsic to the framework is the definition of the skillset of the Business Value Maximisation Specialist (BVMS), a role we believe has been missing to date.

The framework defines the fundamental principles, in practical detail, for gaining maximum value, success and ROI in the specific context of IT systems supporting corporate business processes. One recent BVMF course attendee, an experienced business analysis practitioner and process architect, commented “BVMF is an exceptional framework and collection of techniques”. Another course attendee, a lead business analyst, said “BVMF’s concentration on value is unique - never seen this level of detail before!”

The beneficial power of this framework and associated role can be acquired and assimilated through the training courses we’re running, both in person and online, and through the support and consultancy we provide.

What’s Different About BVMF®?

BVMF and the BVMS role have many differences over other methods, practices and approaches. For a start, the structures and skillset definitions are aimed at supporting all project team members, whereas other approaches and methods have tended to focus on one particular discipline leaving gaps in the value jigsaw.

Traditional and existing IT project approaches have tended to use rather siloed methods, invariably not joining up into one powerful value focused end-to-end journey.

Thus, the BVMS is able to unite all project team members around the common goal of greater rates of success and levels of ROI. All project team members use, benefit from or become involved with BVMF. Another recent course attendee, a business analysis practitioner, fed back to us “After the BVMF course, I found I could unite the business around the common goal of value”.

This multiskilled, value-leading role can be adopted by any team member or members as part of their skillset or a single professional in the team can act as BVMS as their sole, dedicated role.

Another beneficial characteristic is that adopters of BVMF® do not need to utilise the entire framework’s set of models and techniques to get substantial even dramatic rises in success and net business/organisational benefit.

Finally, BVMF works more than happily with any other method, approach, framework or practice, enhancing their value creation capabilities, so nothing is lost, everything is gained. We at BVMF Ltd say “It’s not magic, it’s logic”! Having completed the BVMF Foundation training, a principal business analyst commented “BVMF is extreme common sense, I wish I’d known about it years ago”.

Structure and Extent

BVMF® totals 100 models, 500 Concepts, Principles, Guidelines and Techniques (CPGTs) and a significant number of related artefacts. The main such artefact is a comprehensive list of reasons for failure to meet expectations which are mapped to BVMF models and CPGTs in order for any given reason to be addressed. The CPGTs take the macro level challenges identified by the models and provide actionable micro level things-to-do to end up with a far more successful ROI-boosted result.

The BVMF Development Journey

I started drafting BVMF earlier in my career in the 1990s after gaining better results than the industry norm when mediating between businesses and IT. I was using a set of connected ‘better outcome’ related steps I’d conceived that did not appear to be present in the existing IT/project textbooks and ways of working.

Then, having initiated BVMF® and the BVMS role, while the failure rate remained high and even threatened to rise, I continued to develop BVMF® working through my company MaxVal Consultancy Ltd.

The motivation for me to develop this way of getting more optimal levels of value included commendations from business managers such as the European Procurement Manager of a large multinational manufacturer who said “I’ve yet to meet anyone who can read, interpret and translate IT terminology into better business sense. You have helped us to gain more business value than we thought possible."

After my first article was published in Corporate IT Strategy magazine in 1995, I started to make presentations to consultant networks, industry bodies and client organisations as well as continuing to write articles on the principles of IT business value maximisation. Most recently, In June 2026, Computing magazine published my Letter to the IT Industry: “It Doesn’t Have to be This Way” which you can read here

In 2024, I met my now partner in BVMF Ltd (our training company) Howard Lock, another entrepreneurial business analyst. Together we started running courses for business/IT professionals to put value-boosting power into their skill sets.

The Gap That BVMF Removes

We believe there’s been the lack of a detailed, practical and effective definition of the fundamental principles specifically by which IT systems deliver demonstrable organisational value. We also believe much of the proverbial gap between business and IT has never been properly filled out with appropriately framed, value related concepts and suitable communicational languages and tools.

Some other research and resultant methods over the years have certainly improved the situation in this area but have been rather limited and siloed in their focus, i.e. not joined up into a coherent end-to-end practical and pragmatic value seeking journey. Also, some of these methods have unwittingly introduced counterproductive factors into the net benefit equation.

Potential gaps in communication and value related aspects of work between business operations, management and IT functions are significantly minimised, usually eradicated, by BVMF. The framework and BVMS role have been built on the definition of the value focused layers, steps and languages across that so called gap that have required definition for a long time in IT history.

What BVMF Isn’t

BVMF is primarily not about producing IT systems, or running projects, although both of these are important elements in the mix. BVMF is about producing value, all the way, relentlessly so. It does not try to be an end-to-end project delivery method or reinvent the wheel; it fills in the cracks between the value related paving stones and supplies the various stones that have plainly been missing to our way of thinking.

Questions BVMF® Answers

If higher success rates and levels of ROI are required, answers to the questions below (and other questions) which have not been easy to find up to this time, are needed.

In the specific context of organisational processes supported by IT systems:

• What is value, how does it arise and who is responsible?
• What ingredients are needed?
• What are maximum value’s recipe steps?
• How do we keep getting more value / prevent getting less?
• How do we assess and measure value?

BVMF provides answers to these questions, and others, in a way that appears highly satisfactory judging from 2025’s two-day Foundation course attendees’ feedback that indicated significant improvements in their projects’ levels of value, success and corporate satisfaction.

The ‘75% Fail to 75% Succeed’ initiative

In autumn 2024 I kicked off the “75% Fail to 75% Succeed!” initiative at the DigiGov 2024 public sector event in London. You can see recordings of this and two other live kick-offs on our YouTube channel at IT Business Value Maximisation - YouTube

I’m pleased to say we’ve been running 2-day Foundation level BVMF® courses for more than 15 months now with Intermediate and Advanced courses being well into development.

Further Information

The training website www.BVMF.info has details of the courses we’re running and other relevant material.

The next BVMF Foundation course is scheduled to be held throughout October 2026 across four successive Saturday mornings, this time online.

To find out more and/or sign up for a course please use the Contact page at https://bvmf.info/contact/

My development and consultancy website www.Maximum-Value.co.uk has further background material including links to articles, webinar recordings, a podcast for C-suite executives and a range of YouTube videos.

A More Optimistic Future for All

As joint directors of BVMF Ltd, Howard and I would like to say “Thanks for reading. Please think about joining our “75% Fail to 75% Succeed!” initiative to show how much better we can all be when working together. Let our combined intelligence not be artificial!”