Understanding the quiet gap between intent and value
Organisations can deliver programmes successfully, realise expected benefits and still struggle to achieve the value they originally intended.
My work explores what happens in that space, particularly how organisational conditions shape behaviour, how people respond as implementation unfolds, and how those responses influence what is ultimately realised.
The perspective
Delivery is only part of the story.
Programmes usually begin with an intention: to improve something, solve a problem, create a capability or use resources differently. That intention is translated into business cases, benefits, measures, governance arrangements and delivery plans.
Yet organisations do not stand still while implementation unfolds. Priorities shift, resources tighten, competing pressures emerge and people respond to what the organisation makes visible, legitimate and possible. Those responses may be entirely rational within the conditions people face, while gradually changing the relationship between what was intended and what is ultimately realised.
A programme can therefore deliver what was planned and still leave an important question unresolved: did the intended value actually materialise, and for whom?
This is the question at the centre of the work.
Behavioural Theory of Value Realisation
A developing theory grounded in practice.
The Behavioural Theory of Value Realisation (BTVR) is a practitioner-led perspective exploring the relationship between organisational conditions, behavioural adaptation and the realisation of intended value.
It starts from the proposition that organisational conditions do not simply surround delivery. They influence what people pay attention to, the decisions they make, the actions they regard as legitimate and the behaviours that become rational in practice. Those behaviours can, in turn, strengthen, weaken or redirect the pathway between delivery and intended value.
The theory continues to develop through practice, research and challenge, including testing where the explanation holds, where it does not, and what alternative explanations may better account for what happened.
Explore BTVR →Latest thinking
Insights
Some pieces develop BTVR directly, while others explore related questions around benefits, value, governance, organisational behaviour and public systems.
Public policy | Public value
What Happens After the Shutters Come Up?
What happens after £210 million brings neglected high street buildings back into use, and how intended value can remain visible beyond reopening.Public policy
When Progress Becomes a Risk
How welfare withdrawal can make caution rational, and why support should reduce as stability becomes real.Public administration
The Quiet Gap Between Development Intent and Public Value
Four UK cases test how administrative conditions shape what public programmes become in practice.Value realisation
The Quiet Gap Between Intent and Value
Why successful delivery and realised benefits do not always resolve the question of intended value.Value in practice
Tracing Where Value Goes
Exploring how value may weaken, transfer or be captured elsewhere as implementation unfolds.Organisational attention
What Organisations Choose to Notice
How measures, signals and governance shape what becomes visible, legitimate and actionable.Speaking & Teaching
Bring the conversation into your organisation
I speak and facilitate conversations about programme delivery, benefits, organisational behaviour and value realisation. My approach is practitioner-led and discussion-based, drawing on practical examples and evidence while creating space for people to test the thinking against their own experience.
Organisational talks
Focused sessions that introduce the perspective and create space for discussion within an organisation’s own context.
Conference sessions
Practitioner-led sessions for conferences, professional communities and webinars.
Panels and discussions
Contributions grounded in practice, with a willingness to examine accepted assumptions and follow the implications.
Facilitated workshops
Structured conversations that help teams explore the organisational conditions influencing value in practice.
University teaching
Practitioner-led courses, guest lectures and sessions covering project management, value and benefits, governance and delivery in organisational settings.
Selected engagements
Recent and upcoming
Executive Panel, PMI UK
Presentation, PMI Europe LIM, Lisbon
Upcoming PMI UK Webinar
A practical application
Behavioural Value Review
A BTVR-type problem may exist where a programme is being implemented, governance is functioning and people are acting competently, yet locally understandable behavioural adaptations shape successive decisions until what delivery is optimising and the value originally intended are no longer aligned.
The Behavioural Value Review is a structured diagnostic review informed by BTVR. It examines the relationship between original intent, expected benefits, organisational conditions, behavioural responses and realised value, helping to identify where assumptions may no longer hold and where the pathway to value may have become vulnerable.
The purpose is not to add another reporting requirement, but to examine what conventional programme information may not readily reveal and where there may still be an opportunity to protect or strengthen intended value.
Discuss a review →About ONZ.G
Grounded in practice.
Open to challenge.
ONZ.G Consulting was founded by Ona Gabanakgosi, a project and programme practitioner with more than 17 years’ experience across healthcare, transformation and national programmes.
Her work increasingly focuses on the relationship between programme delivery and value realisation, particularly what happens when apparently sensible organisational decisions produce consequences that were not originally intended.
That interest led to the development of the Behavioural Theory of Value Realisation. The work is grounded in practice and continues to develop through research, professional discussion and challenge.
Alongside her professional role, Ona serves as a Board Member of the PMI UK Chapter, where she is Director of Finance, Digital Events and Artificial Intelligence. She contributes to practitioner conversations through writing, speaking, panel discussions and teaching.
About Ona →