What is a CSF?
Often, a Critical Success Factor is viewed as evidence of success, "We will have succeeded when we work in partnership" or a factor that is critical to success, "We won't succeed unless we work in partnership".
How can I represent these in maps?
Depending on how critical they are you could:
simply show the CSFs as assumptions on maps.
Or if some of your CSFs are important enough to illustrate you may even want to track them. These you could set up as enabling benefits and track them to be certain that the required change is taking place to underpin the ultimate benefits.
Let's say that partnership teams > swifter action > greater cost saving.
In this case, it may be worth tracking and reporting the level of partnership working over time, as if this is not happening in the short term it will hinder the expected delivery level of the end Benefits in the longer term.
How Mapping helps clarify Critical Success Factors
When developing an initial Outline Business Case you may have a loose set of strategic objectives and Critical Success Factors. There is often confusion about which is which at this stage and mapping can really help.
The final objective should be the 'Why' of your programme.
The Benefits should be the breakdown of this big purpose, 'What and How much' of each outcome will you need to deliver the Objectives.
CSF's often focus on the 'How' of programme delivery, and the benefits focus on the "So What/How much".
However, some of the so called 'CSFs' may in fact be Benefits, such as reduced cost outcomes, but in other cases the CSFs might be more about describing how you deliver your programme.
The work is in deciding which CSFs are worth showing on a map. Will showing them as a step in delivery of ultimate Benefits help to drive the essential activity in the organisation and are they worth tracking to ensure that this critical cultural or process change is happening.
The CSFs should absolutely inform the benefits. The CSF is used to determine to what degree do what and how we do this meet these factors, the benefit is what is the difference it will make.
It's your choice whether to have your interim benefits appear on maps, and you may choose to have a Business Case Benefit Map at high level and a Programme Benefit Map with those interim benefits expressed.
It depends on your mapping approach. The detail can be covered in the data and not shown on the map at all.
Whatever your choice, fully understanding the impact of your benefits allows you to make an appropriate and proportionate response to manage your critical success factors and demonstrate changes at the full business case stage.