programme management

Background

Nobody seemed to be clear what the purpose of a programme office was, what services it should provide to whom, what information it should provide, to whom.

In most cases, the success of the programme (if it was a success) seemed entirely due to the success of the separate projects making up the programme, with very little visible benefit from any coordination or other activities at the programme-level.

Attitudes among project managers towards the programme office ranged from irritation and frustration to outright contempt.

The people working in these programme offices are usually intelligent and friendly enough at a personal level, but are themselves frustrated by the task, and by the countless organizational barriers to effectiveness.

Programme management seems to require a strange combination of capabilities: political, administrative. It's often hard to find good people within the organization who really want the job. (In a large PLC, it took months to find a senior enough person to become Programme Director.) Sometimes an external consultant can play this role on a temporary basis, but there are some major political and commercial pitfalls.

So is there a useful role for a programme office? Can it work?

Myths of Programme Management veryard projects > programme management > myths

MYTH: Programme management is just a scaled-up version of project management.

There are some programmes that are simply mega-projects, but these are exceptional.

Everyone's favourite example of a mega-project seems to be the Space Programme. The Americans got a man on the moon by the end of the 1960s. This rare success is usually attributed to a combination of three factors:

• a very clear and simple objective
• a complex but contained engineering task
• enormous political support
Among such mega-projects, there are far more failures than successes. This is therefore a poor model for programme management generally.

MYTH: Programme management is just another layer of bureaucracy on top of project management.

Of course, this is exactly how programme management is sometimes practised. But it doesn't have to be this way.

In one of my clients, trying to implement a large merger simultaneously across business operations and IT, several layers of programme management appeared, with separate (apparently self-appointed) programme managers and programme offices, each making its own demands on projects. I drew a complex diagram to show how all these programme offices interrelated and overlapped - and I like to think that it was my diagram that prompted management to delayer and simplify the programme management structure.

MYTH: A programme is a collection of similar projects.

One approach to programme management is to impose a common management style (and management reporting requirements) on a series of projects that are assumed to be similar. Or perhaps it is thought that they ought to be similar.

For example, it may be assumed that a research programme must be composed of research projects, and that the research projects should all follow a common template - thus they should all be funded in the same way, with the same mixture of academic and industrial participation, over the same three-year period.

But a rich programme welcomes and encourages variety at all levels.

MYTH: A programme is a collection of projects with a common goal.

Sometimes the amount of common ground (and shared values) across a large programme can be very small indeed. This makes coordination more difficult (and more politically charged), but it doesn't make it completely impossible.

For example, consider the programme to take Sterling into the Euro.  There may be several different positions in relation to this programme.
 

• There are many people who will declare open support for the absolute goal: to join the Euro as soon as practically possible.
• There may be many more people who privately support this goal, but prefer to remain neutral in public. Instead, they declare a contingent (and sometimes circular) goal: to join the Euro if and when the time is right to join the Euro.
• And there are many people who publically oppose joining the Euro at any time.


However, there are many ways that these people can usefully collaborate, despite not having (or acknowledging) a common goal. There are lots of common subgoals and contingent goals.
 

• A key event in the entry of Sterling into the Euro is a popular vote (sometimes known as a referendum or plebiscite). Both proponents and opponents accept that this vote will take place, although they have different hopes for the outcome. They will need to collaborate on the planning of this vote, based on a common subgoal: that the vote be a fair reflection of the public mood.
• Consider a businessman who personally believes that Britain should not join the Euro. Despite this opinion, he participates willingly in information sharing activities, attends industry briefings, instructs his IT department to prepare computer systems for a possible entry, commissions economic analyses of the implications of entry for his firm, and so on. There is little to distinguish his behaviour from that of a fellow businessman who is a fervent supporter of early entry into the Euro.


For another example, consider a hypothetical programme to close three small factories and transfer manufacturing to a single large factory. This involves detailed negotiation with employees and/or their representatives. For the management at least, the negotiation with the workforce is part of the programme. (For the unions, the negotiation may well be part of a different programme entirely.) If the negotiation is successful, there will be some common goals and an agreed compromise at the end of the negotiation. These common goals are unlikely to exist at the start of the programme. Despite this, there might be willingness on both sides to carry out various surveys and other projects that will feed information into the negotiation process.

Principles of Programme Management veryard projects > programme management > principles

PRINCIPLE: A programme is more than the sum of its component projects.

Otherwise there's no point in having programme management as well as project management.

PRINCIPLE: A programme should be able to overcome setbacks.

Good programmes are robust. One or two component projects may go astray, but the programme as a whole survives.

Programme management has a strong element of contingency.

PRINCIPLE: A programme should contain a balanced mixture of different projects.

A programme should contain projects of different sizes and durations, as well as different styles.  This has many beneficial consequences.

Different skill levels. Larger and more difficult projects can be given to more experienced project managers and teams. Less experienced personnel can be given appropriate levels of task

Different timing. The projects are not all competing for the same level of resource at the same time. Better resource utilization.

PRINCIPLE: Programme management is largely a political activity, not an administrative one.

Programme management always involves handling organizational and business issues that are beyond the reach of project managers.

Programme management involves the negotiation of common goals, and coordinated activity. It involves the creation of coalitions and alliances, often across multiple organizations.

Summary

• Robust
• Balanced
• Coherent, Meaningful
• Corresponding with business goals and values.
• Diverse

Programme Services veryard projects > programme management > programme services

Programme Planning & Evaluation	Planning projects and other activities to contribute to the programme. Evaluating the contribution of individual projects to the whole programme.
Risk Management	Assessing the risks across a programme, with particular attention to the risks that fall between projects.
Quality Management	Quality planning, quality assurance and process improvement across the programme as a whole.
Knowledge Management	Managing the development, sharing and use of knowledge across the programme.
Communications Strategy	Information dissemination and public relations.  Project managers Project participants Project customers Programme customers Programme sponsors General public
Programme Office Management	What is the role of the programme office?  What services should the programme office provide, to whom? What information should the programme office provide, to whom? How should the effectiveness of the programme office be measured?

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