Every Day You Delay, You Lose A Day's Value
You can destroy value by delivering the projects late thereby delaying the start of benefits realization. Each day/week/month the project is delayed, the benefits are also delayed. The actual value lost is at the end of the value realisation period, which is pushed out and this is when the value is usually at its greatest.
A project that will render $100,000 a month in benefits in, say, three years time loses this value every month it is delayed.
Projects become ‘late’ one day at a time. A day here or there does not seem much but as these days accumulate, the delivery date can be delayed again and again. Sometimes this cannot be avoided, but this does not change the value implications.
The value to be delivered each day, week, or month at the end of the business case period is the value that will be forever lost for each day, week, or month the project is delayed.
In Conclusion
Project delays can be caused by how you approach your project, your team's productivity, the issues and risks that arise, et al. If your project is running late, you may need to change how you implement it so as to speed up its delivery. This will have a direct and major impact on your project’s total net value. Faster project delivery increases the total value realized.
