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When to use Program Management?

Program management is used when you have a group of projects which have a common set of outcomes or use a common set of resources. The benefit to the organisation is in the most effective use of resources, and decision making that will enhance the returns on investment.

Program management is applied in three different ways:

Pure programs, where a number of projects are selected to achieve a common outcome. An example could be where an education authority establishes a program of work to upgrade buildings at 20 schools over a 2 year period. The work at each school could be considered as a project with an allocated project manager who coordinates the work at that school and reports on the performance of work against the agreed scope, budget, timeframe, and quality requirements. The person who takes on the program management role will be interested in the allocation of resources, prioritisation of works, and performance of the whole program of work against the overall allocated budget and timeframe. In addition, this person is interested in achieving the desired benefits from the program for the project owner or customer and managing program level risks. The measurement of this will require agreement of success criteria with the owner, who realises the benefits.

Functional or fiscal programs, where projects are grouped together because they are allocated to an operational or functional unit because that is where the required resources are based.  In this case the projects are not related in terms of common benefits or outcomes. In this case, an amount of money is allocated to a unit each year to do a certain number of projects and program management is used to coordinate the allocation and prioritisation of people, machinery, materials and equipment across these projects. The person taking on this role receives reporting from individual project managers but may take a more active role in projects than in pure programs. This person will also report on overall performance against the program and budget, but not benefits.  
Non-traditional projects, where their size, duration or degree of complexity requires them to be planned and managed as a program of projects.

Note that in this article program management has been used as a role. Sometimes a title of ‘program manager’ is used but is not related to the roles described above. This can lead to confusion in the workplace.

Doug Wheeler,
Senior Consultant, Project Management Program