expected value for the enterprise in and of itself. I've worked on a few products that were on-time and on-budget, but because they failed to gain the commercial success anticipated by the product managers, those projects sure do not feel like successes, i.e. , no one would feel comfortable wearing the project celebration t-shirt anymore. So how can project management drive value? It's based in the tried and true concept of Return on Investment (ROI). The "How" is accomplished by accurate Commitment Management , i.e., setting, managing, and delivering expectations on the "I" or "Investment," so that value-generating "R" or "Return" are realized.  "How" is also accomplished by adopting lessons-learned from past successful projects and products to guide the PM towards success. Step #1: Commitment Management Projects are investments. Organizations invest money and resources into a project with an expectation that the resulting end-product produces a return greater than the original investment, a calculation known as ROI. As project management discipline is applied to better manage the investment and safeguard the expectations upon which the investment was originally funded, it is more likely that the product's expected benefits will be realized. A Business Owner or Product Manager calculates ROI based on expected costs of development and support and the time line from when a product "hits the market" until its end-of-life, when it ceases to provide value. Often that ROI is calculated prior to when a project team or project manager is assigned, so the first thing a Project Manager