1. What Value Assurance Means
Value assurance is about being able to demonstrate, at any point in time, that investment decisions were made and governed in a consistent, defensible, and transparent way.
This is dependent on a Value Case Management process that supports your business case management, as well as on consistent tracking of benefits after delivery.
Organisations are increasingly challenged not only on whether benefits were delivered, but on:
Why something was funded
What evidence supported the decision
Who approved it and when
What was expected at each stage
Whether appropriate governance and scrutiny were applied
Whether decisions can be defended under audit, review, or leadership change
Value assurance, therefore, acts as a control framework for value, building on benefits tracking and reporting for all benefits. This can include Financial (Economic), Organisational Efficiency, Service Delivery (Effectiveness), Product Value, Stakeholder (Cust. & Employee), Strategic Alignment, or Environmental and Sustainability Benefits.
2. The Core Problem Organisations Face
Most organisations experience the same underlying issues:
Value information is fragmented across business cases, spreadsheets, reports, and presentations
Benefits, measures, initiatives, and decisions are disconnected
Governance exists on paper, but not in a live system
Ownership and accountability are unclear or informal
Decisions rely on narrative rather than evidence
There is no reliable audit trail of what happened, why, and who agreed
As a result:
Funding decisions are hard to justify
Portfolio trade-offs are arbitrary
Benefits leakage occurs
Leaders are exposed to reputational and audit risk
Teams spend time chasing information rather than managing value
3. The Concept of a Value Case
A Value Case is the missing organising layer.
A value case represents a single package of investment that moves through a defined lifecycle. It typically aligns to:
A business case
A programme or contract
A group of initiatives
A major change or transformation effort
Instead of value being scattered across maps, workspaces, measures, and reports, the value case acts as:
The primary entry point
The unit of governance
The lens through which value is reviewed
A value case answers simple but critical questions:
What is this investment?
Where is it in the approval or delivery process?
Who owns it?
What value is expected?
What has been agreed so far?
What evidence supports the decisions made?
4. Pathways and Stages
Each value case follows a pathway, which reflects how the organisation governs different types or scales of investment.
Examples include:
Infrastructure approvals
IT or digital change
HR or organisational change
High-value investments over a threshold
Government gateway processes
Each pathway contains stages, which represent approval points or governance gates.
Key principles:
A value case can only be in one stage of one pathway at a time
Moving stages reflects real governance actions, not just status updates
Stage progression represents evidence gathered, decisions made, and sign-off achieved
This allows organisations to scale governance without bureaucracy and to apply the right level of rigour depending on context.
5. What a Value Case Contains in Wovex
In Wovex, a value case brings together three critical elements:
1. Summary and Control Information
High-level, management-focused fields such as:
Owner and sponsor
Current stage and pathway
Expected benefits and costs
Key dates and priorities
This provides leadership with a fast, reliable overview.
2. Linked Evidence
Direct access to:
Benefits
Measures
Initiatives
Risks
Related value agreements, maps, dashboards, tables, or workbooks
Nothing is duplicated. Everything remains connected to the underlying data.
3. Audit Trail and Narrative
A live timeline capturing:
Notes
Decisions
Changes
Key events
Rationale for approval or continuation
This becomes the authoritative record of why the organisation did what it did.
When a value case is completed, paused, or cancelled, the full history remains available for challenge, review, or learning.
6. Why the Value Case Is the Primary Entry Point
For most users, especially senior stakeholders, the value case becomes the place they return to.
From a value case, users can:
Review current status and priorities
Drill into maps, measures, and definitions
View approved Value Agreements, published dashboards and reports
Understand risks, decisions, and next steps
This avoids forcing leaders to navigate large workspaces or historical detail they only see what matters for each case.
7. How Value Assurance Applies to Different Roles
Value assurance matters differently depending on role, but the same structure supports everyone.
1. Value and Benefits Teams
Operationalise value assurance
Set up value cases, pathways, and stages
Maintain measures, evidence, and audit trails
Produce defensible reporting
Wovex helps them move from spreadsheet coordination to structured accountability and professional governance.
2. PMO, Portfolio, and Business Case Teams
Support funding decisions and governance
Manage risk, prioritisation, and trade-offs
Provide evidence under scrutiny
Wovex enables consistent comparison across cases, avoids tick-box governance, and replaces fragmented evidence with a single source of truth.
3. Directors, CIOs, COOs, and Sponsors
Are accountable for outcomes they do not personally manage
Must defend decisions under audit, board review, or public scrutiny
Carry reputational and career risk
Wovex provides:
Defensible evidence
Clear ownership
Transparent governance
Confidence that the right process was followed
The focus shifts from narrative justification to demonstrable rigour.
4. CFOs and Executive Leadership
Are accountable for capital allocation and value for money
Need trust in the organisation’s decision-making system
Must scale governance without slowing delivery
For this audience, value assurance is not benefits management.
It is a control framework that provides:
Audit-ready governance
Traceability from funding to outcomes
Confidence under cost pressure and portfolio resets
Systematic accountability across the organisation
8. Why This Matters Now
Trigger moments repeatedly expose gaps in value assurance:
Budget cuts or funding rounds
Portfolio reprioritisation
Failed projects
Leadership change
External audit or public scrutiny
Benefits not materialising as expected
Without a system like Wovex, organisations rely on ad-hoc narratives and disconnected evidence.
With Wovex, they can demonstrate:
What was known at the time
What decisions were made
That governance was followed
That value was managed, not assumed
9. What Wovex Enables Overall
Wovex is not only a tool for tracking benefits.
It enables:
Value assurance as a discipline
Value cases as the unit of governance
Pathways and stages that reflect real organisational control
Evidence-based decision-making at every level
Confidence, defensibility, and trust in how money is spent
In short, Wovex helps organisations move from claiming value to assuring value.