CGEIT Benefits Realization Practice Test 6 — 15 Questions

Question 1

A government agency's IT steering committee is prioritizing a set of candidate investments for the coming fiscal year. One proposal promises a 15 percent reduction in case-processing time, and the committee wants to compare it fairly against proposals that promise revenue growth and risk reduction. Which approach should the committee use to compare these dissimilar benefits?

Choose an answer to begin — your selection is scored in the full session.

Accepted Answer

Score each proposal against weighted criteria that reflect the agency's strategic objectives, including financial, operational, and risk dimensions.. When benefits are heterogeneous, the committee needs a common scale that reflects strategy, not just cash. A weighted scoring model converts financial, operational, and risk benefits into comparable scores, supports transparent trade-offs, and documents why each investment was selected. That makes the prioritization defensible and directly connected to enterprise objectives.

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Fund the proposal with the shortest payback period first, then allocate remaining budget by project size.

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Rank all proposals by net present value and fund them in descending order until the budget is exhausted.

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Ask each business sponsor to present a qualitative business case and let the committee reach consensus by discussion.

Question 2

A retail bank's IT investment committee is defining how it will confirm that a new fraud-detection platform delivered its intended value. The platform's business case promised reduced fraud losses and faster case resolution. Which artifact should the committee establish FIRST to enable later confirmation of these benefits?

Accepted Answer

A benefits realization plan with owners, measures, baselines, and target dates for each benefit.. Confirmation of benefits requires an agreed plan specifying measures, owners, baselines, and timing before the initiative alters the environment. The benefits realization plan provides that foundation, ensuring fraud-loss and case-resolution data are captured comparably. Risk registers, vendor SLAs, and review schedules support governance but do not by themselves enable verification that the promised business value was achieved.

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A post-implementation review schedule aligned to the enterprise project lifecycle.

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A revised enterprise risk register reflecting the residual risk after platform deployment.

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A service level agreement with the platform vendor covering uptime and response times.

Question 3

A government agency's IT governance board is defining how it will categorize the value expected from a new citizen-services portal. The board wants a classification that reflects both tangible and intangible returns so that trade-offs can be discussed consistently. Which categorization approach BEST supports this?

Accepted Answer

Classify benefits as either quantifiable or non-quantifiable, with quantified benefits expressed in monetary terms and non-quantifiable benefits described qualitatively.. A classification of quantifiable versus non-quantifiable benefits keeps both monetary returns and intangible outcomes visible and comparable, which is what the board needs to discuss trade-offs consistently. Expenditure, departmental, and technology-component taxonomies all describe cost, ownership, or solution structure rather than the nature of the value, and they obscure intangible benefits.

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Classify benefits strictly by the department that requested the funding so that each unit can defend its own estimates.

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Classify benefits by the technology component that enables them, such as portal, database, or integration layer.

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Classify all benefits as either capital or operational expenditure to align with the agency's accounting treatment.

Question 4

An IT governance committee is defining how it will track the benefits of a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. The committee wants to ensure that reported benefits are credible and comparable over time. Which action is MOST important?

Accepted Answer

Establish a benefits register with defined metrics, baselines, targets, owners, and measurement frequency.. A benefits register with defined metrics, baselines, targets, owners, and reporting frequency is the foundational artifact that makes benefit tracking credible and comparable. It assigns accountability and creates an auditable record. Post-implementation reviews, project status reports, and vendor case studies are supporting inputs but cannot substitute for a structured register that governs measurement from the outset.

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Require the project manager to report benefit status in the weekly project status report.

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Conduct a post-implementation review six months after go-live.

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Ask the vendor to provide a benefits case study from a similar ERP deployment.

Question 5

An insurance company is preparing a post-implementation benefits review for a claims automation program. The program sponsor wants the review to produce credible conclusions about whether promised benefits were achieved. Which TWO actions should the reviewer perform to strengthen the credibility of the review? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Compare actual results against the baselines and targets recorded in the approved benefits realization plan.. Credibility in a benefits review comes from measuring actual results against pre-agreed baselines and targets, and from independent validation of the data and method. Together these prevent hindsight bias and self-reported optimism. Rebuilding the business case, surveying the delivery team, or extending the measurement window all substitute convenient evidence for objective evidence and would weaken the review's conclusions.

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Survey the program team to confirm that the automation features were delivered as specified in the requirements.

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Recalculate the original business case using current assumptions to show the program would still be approved today.

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Extend the review period until the reported benefits match the original targets in the business case.

Question 6

A telecommunications company has a benefits register showing that a network analytics platform is on track to meet its efficiency targets, but the business unit that funded it reports that the operational teams are not using the dashboards. The program manager argues the platform is technically complete and benefits should be signed off. Which action should the steering committee take?

Accepted Answer

Keep the program open and require evidence of adoption and realized efficiency before confirming the benefits.. Benefits are realized only when the capability is actually used and the intended outcome is measured, so the committee should require adoption evidence before confirming. Signing off on technical completion, transferring an unachieved benefit, or reassigning targets to the technology function all disconnect accountability from the process that produces the value.

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Sign off the benefits because the platform met its technical acceptance criteria and efficiency targets are trending positively.

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Close the program and transfer the benefits to the business unit, noting that adoption is now the business unit's responsibility.

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Reassign the efficiency targets to the technology function since it built and operates the platform.

Question 7

An insurance company's CIO has asked the governance committee to approve early termination of a multi-year core platform replacement. The platform has consumed 60 percent of its budget but delivered only the policy administration module, and the remaining scope is projected to exceed the approved funding envelope. Which consideration should MOST influence the committee's decision?

Accepted Answer

Whether the remaining scope can still deliver benefits that justify the additional funding required.. Benefits realization governance requires decisions based on future costs and future benefits, not on what has already been spent. The committee should test whether the incremental investment needed to finish still produces benefits that exceed that investment. If not, redirecting the remaining capital to stronger alternatives creates more enterprise value than continuing.

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The amount of budget already consumed, because terminating now would waste the 60 percent already invested.

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The reputational impact on the CIO and the delivery team if the program is cancelled publicly.

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Whether the vendor contract includes penalties for early termination of the remaining phases.

Question 8

A utility company's CIO must recommend how to govern benefits realization across a portfolio of 40 IT initiatives with a combined budget of $90M. Initiatives range from regulatory compliance to customer experience. The board wants assurance that value is being delivered, not just that projects are completed. Which governance approach BEST provides this assurance?

Accepted Answer

Establish portfolio-level benefit categories with standardized measures, and require periodic benefit status reporting with escalation for variances.. Portfolio-level value assurance requires common benefit categories and measures, clear ownership, and regular reporting with escalation when results deviate. This lets the board compare and challenge outcomes across heterogeneous initiatives. Certification of deliverables, program consolidation, or PMO-delegated spend reporting all emphasize activity and cost rather than realized value, leaving the board unable to confirm that the $90M produced intended benefits.

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Delegate benefits tracking to the project management office and report only aggregate spend versus budget to the board.

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Consolidate all initiatives into a single strategic program with one executive sponsor and one integrated benefits register.

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Require each initiative manager to certify completion of all deliverables at project closure and report closure status monthly.

Question 9

An enterprise is preparing a benefits-based review of a proposed IT investment before the board approves funding. The benefits owner must ensure the review is rigorous and defensible. Which TWO actions are MOST critical for this review? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Validate that each claimed benefit is linked to a specific strategic objective with an accountable business owner.. A rigorous benefits-based business case review tests two things above all: that each claimed benefit is linked to a strategic objective with an accountable owner, and that each benefit has a defined metric, baseline, target, and timeframe. Together these convert aspirational claims into measurable, owned commitments that governance can monitor after approval.

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Ensure the project schedule includes all technical milestones and dependencies.

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Confirm that the vendor's reference customers have achieved similar results.

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Confirm the technical architecture aligns with the enterprise architecture standards.

Question 10

A global manufacturer's governance committee has approved a benefits realization framework. Eighteen months later, an audit finds that several IT investments show 'green' benefits status in quarterly reports even though the underlying operational metrics have not improved. The framework requires business owners to self-report status. Which change to the framework would MOST improve the reliability of benefits reporting?

Accepted Answer

Require business owners to attach source-system evidence for each reported metric and have an independent function validate a sample each cycle.. The framework relied on unverified self-assessment, so status reflected optimism rather than evidence. Requiring source-system data and independent sampling validation introduces objective proof and a credible check while preserving business ownership of the metrics. That combination improves reliability far more than changing reporting frequency, centralizing the process, or adding penalties.

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Add a financial penalty clause to business unit budgets when reported benefits are not achieved.

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Increase the reporting frequency from quarterly to monthly so problems surface sooner.

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Replace business owner self-reporting entirely with a central project management office that consolidates all benefits status.

Question 11

An enterprise has completed a major IT-enabled transformation. Twelve months later, the benefits owner finds that some projected benefits were achieved, some were partially achieved, and some were not achieved at all. The board wants to understand why and to improve future benefits realization. Which action BEST addresses this governance need?

Accepted Answer

Conduct a benefits realization post-implementation review that compares actual outcomes to the business case and identifies root causes of variance.. A benefits realization post-implementation review is the governance mechanism that compares actual outcomes to the business case, explains variances, and extracts lessons for future investments. It answers the board's question about causes and provides input to improve the benefits realization framework, unlike technical audits, architecture updates, or administrative closure.

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Commission a technical audit of the solution to confirm it was built to specification.

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Close the program formally and reassign the remaining budget to other initiatives.

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Update the enterprise architecture repository to reflect the new solution components.

Question 12

A global retailer has completed an IT-enabled supply chain transformation. Twelve months after go-live, the PMO reports that the expected reduction in inventory carrying cost has not materialized, even though the system is fully operational and user adoption is high. The CIO asks the benefits realization manager to determine why the expected benefit is not being realized. Which action should the benefits realization manager take FIRST?

Accepted Answer

Verify whether the benefit was assigned to a named benefits owner and whether the associated business process changes were actually implemented.. When technology is delivered and adopted but expected benefits do not appear, the most frequent causes are lack of a named benefits owner and failure to implement the business process changes the benefit depends on. Confirming ownership and process change is a fast, targeted diagnostic that addresses the enterprise's accountability for outcomes rather than the solution's technical functionality.

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Escalate to the vendor to confirm that the supply chain module is configured to deliver the promised inventory optimization functionality.

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Re-run the business case to recalculate the projected inventory carrying cost savings using actual post-implementation data.

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Commission a post-implementation review to compare the original business case assumptions against the current supply chain operating model.

Question 13

An enterprise is preparing a benefits realization report for its governance committee covering a multi-year digital workplace program. The committee wants assurance that reported benefits are credible and comparable across business units. Which TWO practices should the benefits realization manager apply to strengthen the credibility of the reported benefits? (Choose two.)

Accepted Answer

Use a consistent, documented measurement method with defined baselines and timing for each benefit across all business units.. Credible benefits reporting requires standardized measurement with defined baselines and timing, plus named accountability for each benefit. Together these ensure that numbers are comparable across units and that someone is responsible for explaining variances. Arbitrary uplifts, selective reporting of only achieved benefits, and unit-specific metrics all undermine the committee's ability to assess and compare value reliably.

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Allow each business unit to select its own benefit metrics so that reporting reflects local operating conditions and priorities.

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Apply a uniform percentage uplift to all forecast benefits to account for optimism bias in the original business case.

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Report only benefits that have been fully achieved, excluding those still in progress, to avoid overstating program value.

Question 14

A government agency has approved a benefits realization plan for a new citizen services portal. During execution, the program manager proposes deferring a planned integration with the identity verification service to accelerate the portal launch by two months. The benefits owner notes that the deferred integration will delay the projected reduction in identity fraud losses. Which action should the governance committee take to protect benefits realization?

Accepted Answer

Require a benefit impact assessment that quantifies the deferred fraud reduction, identifies any offsetting benefits, and then decide on the trade-off.. When a proposed change affects an approved benefit, the governance committee should require a benefit impact assessment that quantifies the effect and identifies compensating benefits before deciding. This keeps benefits realization as the decision criterion, allows informed trade-offs, and avoids both blind approval driven by schedule and rigid rejection of all change.

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Approve the deferral because accelerating launch improves time-to-value and the fraud reduction benefit will still be delivered later.

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Refer the decision to the program manager because operational scheduling trade-offs fall within the program's delegated authority.

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Reject the deferral outright because any deviation from the approved benefits realization plan must not be permitted during execution.

Question 15

An enterprise has just approved a three-year digital customer portal program. The CIO asks the IT governance committee to establish how benefits will be measured and reported to the board. The committee must decide which instrument gives the board the most reliable basis for judging whether the program is delivering value. Which of the following is the MOST appropriate instrument?

Accepted Answer

A benefits register that records each benefit, its owner, baseline, target, measurement method, and reporting frequency. The committee needs a forward-looking, ongoing governance instrument that ties each expected benefit to an owner, a baseline, a target, and a measurement method. That is precisely what a benefits register provides, enabling the board to compare actual outcomes with commitments at each review point. Cost, schedule, and retrospective reporting mechanisms describe activity or hindsight, not realized value.

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A post-implementation review conducted once the portal has been live for twelve months

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An earned value management report comparing planned spend with actual spend and work completed

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A detailed project schedule showing milestones, deliverables, and resource assignments for all three years