How to attribute improvement to outcomes

Attribution is the missing discipline in most CI portfolios. Without it, every benefit claim becomes negotiable. With it, your impact compounds visibly.

Why attribution gets skipped

Attribution is hard. The cost saving was £400k — but how much of that was the CI project, how much was the new ERP, how much was favourable currency? In the absence of clear attribution, two things happen. CI claims everything (and loses credibility with finance). Or CI claims nothing (and loses credibility with the board).

The discipline that fixes this is small but consistent: every project carries a documented baseline, a documented outcome measure, and a documented attribution rule.

The three-line attribution rule

Baseline: what was the measure before the project started? Documented at project initiation, signed off by finance.

Outcome measure: what is the measure now? Same definition, same source, same calculation method as the baseline.

Attribution rule: how did we decide what % of the change to attribute to this project? A one-paragraph statement, agreed before the work starts, not retrofitted.

Why this matters at portfolio level

A portfolio of 30 projects with consistent attribution is auditable. A portfolio of 30 projects with inconsistent attribution is rhetoric.

The single biggest reason CI portfolios get cut in budget rounds is that the impact claims don't survive scrutiny. The single biggest reason that happens is missing attribution discipline.