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Change in today's world affects everyone. You face a changing environment both in your private life and in the business world in which you work. Some of these changes are beyond your control, such as the weather, which not only changes with the passing seasons, but seems to be changing in its behavior with the passing years. Not all change is so automatic and uncontrolled. You can choose to create change in your life by taking carefully framed decisions. You choose to change jobs, move house, or adopt a different lifestyle as an expression of your personal desires and as a means of satisfying your current needs. However, frequently you face changes that you don’t choose because the decision is taken by another. You don’t like an increase in taxation but someone decides it’s essential for the greater good of the economy. Such change is obligatory for all, and you have to face consequential changes and take decisions to further adapt your lifestyle to accommodate the reduction in income. Similarly, others at work take decisions about how you must work or what you do; you have no input to the change and you are expected to accept the new environment that results. Technological advances continue to affect you at an increasing pace, creating additional stress through the need to keep up to date. One thing is a certainty: the pace of change will continue to increase in the future. The consequences of change range from trivial through to very significant, affecting your response. Success in managing change is directly related to your ability to: • understand the current reality; • carefully design the change process; • manage the consequences. Treat the change as an opportunity and a challenge. Selected change usually creates positive behaviors and constructive responses, whereas imposed change often generates open and latent opposition, negative and critical responses and even open sabotage. These consequences must be effectively managed for a successful outcome. CHANGE AND THE PROGRAM AND PROJECT MANAGER Programs and projects are concerned with creating and managing change in an organized and structured manner. Proven tools and techniques are available to you but you must also focus on the impact on people. A successful outcome is a direct measure of your ability as an effective change agent. You are faced with dealing with the fears that act to restrain the change process. At the same time, you demonstrate your enthusiasm and excitement at the prospect of achieving advances in the way your organization operates in the current and future business environment. This demands a wide range of people skills besides those traditionally associated with managing projects. You need to be able to: • select the right team members with appropriate skills; • recognize and understand the different types of personalities you must manage; • set clear objectives and align people's personal goals; • create a real sense of responsibility and obligation in the project team; • manage a team as an interactive unit; • create a sense of commitment in the team members, some of whom may have little interest in the results expected; • coach, guide and actively support the individual team members; • explain decisions and keep everyone informed of progress; • establish a sustaining environment for effective dialogue and feed back in the team and with other teams and their management; • manage upwards to influence senior management and other line managers; • manage third parties: contractors, suppliers, consultants; • understand the real needs of the end users of the results; • satisfy the internal customer; • handle conflicts effectively; • demonstrate a concern for continuous improvement, questioning traditions and always seeking a better way of doing things; • take a holistic view -- seeing the bigger picture, understanding where the change fits into corporate strategy, other project activity and expected future changes. This list may seem formidable, placing unexpected demands on your current skills. Moreover, there are additional management skills you will need to learn and improve as you become a more effective agent of change. WHAT IS A PROJECT? In most organizations the process of maintaining normal operations to meet the corporate objectives is the primary responsibility of the functional management. This includes the activities associated with improving effectiveness on a day-to-day basis through continuous improvement, seeking always to be better at the way the essential work is carried out. As you recognize, this is the traditional way to get things done because it’s dependent on the habits and working practices generated by experience. Projects vary considerably in size and duration. The project provides the organization with an alternative way of achieving results where the work to be done is likely to cross functional boundaries. It involves people in different parts or divisions of an organization, even different sites in the same or different countries. This allows you to use the most appropriate skills, gathered into a co-ordinated work unit to achieve results that would be difficult to accomplish in one department. The idea is not new, since most large pieces of work such as construction activities have always required a diverse range of particular skills. These skills are not within the capability of one individual. The rapid advance of modern technology has created an enormous group of specialists, each with experience and extensive knowledge needed for the work. Even the smallest project today may call for this experience and knowledge from technologists, engineers, scientists, finance specialists, marketers, salespeople and others. Your job as the project manager is to obtain the services of these specialists, from wherever they live in the organization, to achieve a successful outcome. The project is a powerful mechanism for achieving that success. The project is therefore something special by its nature and by the fact that it’s perceived as being an activity outside normal operations. It may be defined as: a collection of linked activities carried out in an organized manner with a clearly defined start point and finish point, to achieve some specific results that satisfy the needs of an organization as derived from the organization's current business plans. A project is therefore a temporary Endeavour to achieve some specific objectives in a defined time. Because it’s a practical activity carried out beyond normal operations, you will need to use a different approach to the work involved to achieve the desired results. The most unusual element of the project work is the particular effort you must use to manage a team whose membership is subject to continual change. Changes in the team's membership will occur partly because the range of skills required at any particular time is liable to change, and partly because of the varying availability of individuals from different departments, each of which has continually changing priorities. It’s difficult enough to build an effective team in a hierarchical structure with dedicated full-time members. Add the transitory nature of the project team and the job has increased complexity. You have to give additional attention to the essential skills of communication, negotiation and influencing others to keep everyone's focus on the project objectives. PROJECTS AND SUB-PROJECTS === The characteristics of projects A project: _ has a specific purpose that can be readily defined; _ is unique because it’s most unlikely to be repeated in exactly the same way by the same group of people to give the same results; _ is focused on the customer and customer expectations; _ is not usually routine work but may include routine-type tasks; _ is made up of a collection of activities that are linked together because they all contribute to the desired result; _ has clearly defined and agreed time constraints - a date when the results are required; _ is frequently complex because the work involves people in different departments and even on different sites; _ has to be flexible to accommodate change as the work proceeds; _ involves many unknowns: within the work itself, the skills of the people doing the work and the external influences on the project; _ has cost constraints, which must be clearly defined and understood to ensure that the project remains viable at all times; _ provides a unique opportunity to learn new skills; _ forces you to work in a different way because the 'temporary' management role is directly associated with the life of the project; _ challenges traditional lines of authority with perceived threats to the status quo; _ involves risks at every step of the process, risks that must be managed to sustain the focus on the desired results; _ may comprise more than one sub-project. above: FIG. 1 Project characteristics === In many project situations it’s clearly easy for you to break the work activity down into separate pieces. Each piece is still a large collection of work tasks. When the breakdown of the project shows pieces of work that can be carried out by just one department, function or specific location, it’s convenient to create a sub-project. The sub-project has a small team dedicated to the work, with a project leader to manage the team. The sub project is likely to be completed before the whole project is completed and then the resources working on the sub-project are released for other work or another sub-project. A sub-project may be defined as: a key work element of a project; typically, a collection of closely related key stages with a defined start and stop date, defined objectives and deliverables. One sub-project may be tightly integrated with other sub-project activities within the project. A sub-project cannot be justified as a stand-alone effort and does not normally produce revenue on a stand-alone basis. It’s important that you ensure that each sub-project has clearly defined ownership, with a project leader and appropriate team dedicated to the work. Sub-projects provide the organization with an opportunity to train aspiring project managers and learn the essential management skills to become effective. There is often a problem of defining what is a project and what is a sub-project. The characteristics of projects apply to sub-projects. For a consistent approach it’s convenient to establish some simple rules to show the key elements of each ( Table .1). A person-year is defined as 'one person dedicating 100 per cent of his or her time to the project work'. For example, if you use the definitions given in Table .1, for a piece of work to be classified as a project, it requires a minimum of: • two people giving 100 per cent of their time for 12 months, or • four people giving 100 per cent of their time for six months, or • eight people giving 25 per cent of their time for 12 months. Similarly, for a piece of work to be classified as a sub-project, it requires a minimum of: • two people giving 100 per cent of their time for six months, or • four people giving 100 per cent of their time for three months, or • four people giving 25 per cent of their time for 12 months. These rules can be extended to include key stages and tasks where required. === Table .1 Distinction between projects and sub-projects Project Requires at least two or more person- years of effort and involving more than one person Comprises sub-projects, key stages, C tasks and sub-tasks Not directly related to another active project May be directly part of an active program and related to one or more other projects Sub-project Requires at least one person-year or more of effort and involving more than one person Comprises key stages, tasks and sub-tasks Directly related to an active project Not directly part of an active program except as part of an active related project === WHAT IS A PROGRAM? All organizations today recognize that they operate in an environment of change and must quickly react to forces that affect performance and potential growth. This need for quick reaction often leads to many projects becoming initiated, including some that are 'wild horses' or 'loose cannons'. Some of these projects can readily assume a size and duration far exceeding initial expectations. Such projects soon show the signs of the strain imposed on them: ineffective management, unclear objectives and inadequate resources. Many organizations have fallen into the trap of making their projects too big, often by default as the objectives are widened or because 'add-ons' to the original scope lead to 'scope creep'. Management issues are increased and such projects often acquire a legendary status in the organization. Dividing such large projects into smaller, more manageable pieces makes success much more likely and implementation easier. To minimize such problems many organizations have adopted the concept of programs. A program is defined as: a collection of interdependent projects managed in a co-ordinated manner that together will provide the desired business outcomes. A program is always derived from a specific business strategy or part of a business plan. It’s often a phased activity with target objectives and end dates for the initial phases well defined and committed. Subsequent phases are defined during the execution of the initial or preceding phase, allowing new, related projects to be initiated as appropriate. The interdependence of all the projects is an integral property of the program. If any one project fails to deliver on time, the whole program is put at risk and considerable cost overruns could occur. In some circumstances the whole program may suffer so badly that it’s cancelled, with significant consequences for the organization and the people engaged on the work. This may seem like a great way to organize all your projects: just collect them into groups and call them programs. This is the potential trap for the unwary. The essential test for a program is the interdependent nature of the projects it links. If a particular project's link is tentative and it’s known that the deliverables of that project are primarily aimed at another customer then it’s questionable whether it’s really part of the program. If you include such doubtfully related projects in your program, you increase the probability of additional risks created by slippage or delays beyond your control. You just need to ensure that your business case and scope include the shared deliverables from that project and the dates when the results are expected to be avail able to your team. Don’t collect projects together into a program just for reporting or management convenience. However, if a project yields a deliverable that may subsequently have an additional use either internally or for a customer, then you can still include it in your program. The projects in a program must have the same primary customer in their objectives. Collecting projects with different customers into a program because the deliverables are useful will increase the risks to the program's success. AN EXAMPLE PROGRAM 
FIG. 2 shows the structure of a cost reduction program that involves reducing operating costs in three separate production units, two in Europe and one in the Far East. The functional structure varies because of the cultural differences between the locations and this has prompted the program manager to do two things. He or she has given the general managers of the European plants specific cost reduction objectives and left them to appoint a project manager who will make decisions concerning the required sub-projects. Second, the program manager has given the departmental managers of the Far East plant separate cost reduction targets and left each of them to appoint their project manager, who will decide if any sub-projects are necessary. In this way the total activity is broken down into manageable chunks using the right people to carry out the work, and because the program structure is visible everyone involved understands their role. The program manager’s objective is to achieve an overall cost reduction from the cumulative results from all the projects in the program. As the work proceeds one project may perform better than expected and this can compensate for poor performance from another project without impacting the overall outcome. Additional sub-projects can be initiated to take advantage of improved performance or revised scope and delivery as the program proceeds. WHY PROGRAM MANAGEMENT? Program management provides the organization with an opportunity to break down the work into a group of related and interdependent projects. The 'program approach' allows you to separate easily manageable chunks of work as discrete projects without losing the essential relationship between the projects to yield the desired program objectives. Benefits from projects usually start when the project is completed. Benefits from a program, however, will often start to accrue when the first project or even a sub-project is completed, as shown in FIG. 3. The projects and their sub-projects all have different completion dates. As more projects and sub-projects are completed, the benefits grow until the last project is completed and starts to yield benefits. Then the program should start to yield the total planned benefit. You will need all the skills you have acquired as a project manager to manage a program effectively. You can consider the program to be a 'superproject' utilizing all the techniques you employ in carrying out a project. ====
==== All the methods discussed later in this guide apply to the higher level of a program. Every program must have: • senior management accountability; • clearly defined objectives and benefits; • a plan and schedule with defined start and end dates; • a dynamic risk management process; • an issue management process; • a continuous performance review process. In any program all the projects must have well-defined objectives and benefits linked to the program to realize the desired result. WHAT IS PROGRAM MANAGEMENT? As we have seen, a program is a collection of interdependent projects managed in a co-ordinated manner that together will provide the desired outcomes. Program management is essentially the control system you use to achieve the desired results or outcomes. The phases and the dynamic life cycle comprise the dynamic process you are going to employ. So program management may be defined as: the utilization of project management and its inherent processes to manage effectively a collection of closely interdependent projects in a controlled and structured manner to achieve some clearly defined objectives identified as strategic needs. The processes employed for programs and projects are similar. Program management is primarily concerned to satisfy strategic needs identified from business planning. Since it involves maintaining an overview of several interdependent projects, all active with differing time lines, program management is closely linked to business management. Programs generally use more resources simply because of their size and are often spread between several locations. The impact of progress or lack of it must be under constant review in terms of the business benefits expected, especially as benefits accumulate as projects complete and new ones start. The programs and projects that are approved as active at any time make up the program and project portfolio. This portfolio is like an investment portfolio: some programs and projects are low risk and a few are very high risk, and if all succeed, the business will benefit significantly. All are perceived as essential to success, but priorities do change as new opportunities arise, and the organization must ensure that adequate resources and funding are available. So, the definition of program management can be extended further. It can now be defined as: creating the environment where the portfolio of all active programs and stand-alone projects is managed to yield defined benefits in pursuit of business strategic needs. As with investments, we need to understand our portfolio -- what is in it and why and how we will benefit. Program management must create a suitable environment where well-informed business decisions can be made about the active programs and projects, for effective business results. This is sometimes termed portfolio management. WHAT IS PROJECT MANAGEMENT? The management of your project is essentially the control system you use to achieve the right results or outcomes. As with a program, the phases and the dynamic action cycle comprise the dynamic process you are going to employ, so project management may now be defined as: a dynamic process that utilizes the appropriate resources in a controlled and structured manner to achieve some clearly defined objectives identified as strategic needs. Project management is clearly carried out within an environment of set constraints, either from a program or as a stand-alone project with a defined scope. === Table 2 Differences between program management and project management Program management...
Project management ...
=== WHY IS PROGRAM MANAGEMENT DIFFERENT FROM PROJECT MANAGEMENT? Although it’s easy to consider program management and project management to be different disciplines, in practice they also have many similarities. Both require an essential understanding of project processes. A program manager with no knowledge of how to lead a project team successfully is not likely to make a success of a program. To lead a project team successfully a project manager must have a detailed under standing of all the processes employed in project management through the project phases. Program and project management have some common characteristics. Both: • are objectives oriented - without objectives you have no outcomes; • are change oriented - aimed at creating something the organization needs but does not have; • are multi-disciplined - needing a wide range of skills to achieve success; • benefit from opportunism - requiring short cuts to be taken and old norms to be bypassed; • are performance oriented - requiring the setting of appropriate standards and quality of outputs; • are control oriented - needing carefully designed controls to maintain the schedule; • question tradition - demand that managers avoid getting trapped by the old ways of doing things. The primary objective of program management is to ensure that all the constituent projects together provide the benefit required, regardless of the performance of any individual project or sub-project. Other differences are listed in Table .2. Too often the selection of team members for a project team is controlled less by the skill-set needed and more by 'who is available'. Always ensure you have some part in the selection process. You probably won’t have a free hand to select who you want, but at least exert a strong influence. Many programs and projects have run into difficulties because the wrong team members were selected at the outset. If program and project management is accepted as an essential skill in your organization, you will find it possible to influence senior managers to support your efforts from the outset. WHAT IS DIFFERENT ABOUT PROGRAM AND PROJECT MANAGEMENT? Compared with normal functional management, the principal difference is that you are operating in a temporary role. You are the manager of the team only for the life of the program or stand-alone project and then you return to your other operational duties - or another program with possibly a different team. This situation leads to some specific differences when compared to the 'fixed' functional hierarchical team that is part of the organizational structure. In a fixed functional team, as the manager you: • lead the team; • have team members reporting direct to you alone; • have a stable team membership in the medium to long term; • create the conditions for good teamworking; • set the team norms and behaviors with the team; • decide responsibilities and coach team members in new skills; • control the work of the team - input and output; • build trust and respect in the team; • encourage the personal growth and development of the team members; • encourage sharing of information, opinions and feelings for the team's benefit; • utilize the team's creative skills to improve team performance; • appraise the team members' performance; • set individual targets to improve performance; • create a team identity. The team you bring together for a program or stand-alone project will almost certainly have come from different departments in the organization, maybe even different sites. Although you must attempt to do all the things just listed, you will have difficulty with some of them: • Team members report to you only for their work on the program or project and to their line manager for other work - unless they are fully dedicated to your new team. • Your team membership is less likely to have stability, owing to changing priorities of the team members' line managers. • With a changing team membership, conditions for good teamwork are more difficult to create. • Often team members don’t know each other, and setting team norms takes a considerable time. • You are in a time-limited situation and can find little time for coaching; you need the skills immediately. • Team members who don’t know each other well are always hesitant to share information, opinions and feelings openly. • You can appraise an individual only on his or her program or project work; this individual may be working on more than one project at a time for different managers and still have line responsibilities. So who does the appraisal and how? • Creating a team identity requires time and additional effort on your part to ensure that the team comes together regularly as a team to learn more about each other. The organizational hierarchical structure is a matrix from which your team is drawn, and during the early stages of a program or stand-alone project everyone is getting used to the situation of working with a different group of people. This can lead to more conflict than you would like, so pay particular attention to getting to know and understand the team members yourself through setting up regular one-to-one meetings with each. Success in program and project management is not going to be yours merely as a result of your using the right tools and techniques. It’s only achieved through giving time to leading the team and overcoming these areas of potential difficulty, which will then reduce the risk of failure. HOW ARE PROGRAMS AND PROJECTS DERIVED? As we have seen, the program or project is a vehicle for carrying change to its intended conclusion, which is to give your organization something it does not currently have, but strongly desires. But where do the ideas for all this additional activity come from? You may feel the answer is obvious - the senior management, maybe. Yet anyone in the organization may come up with ideas. Creativity and idea generation are not the exclusive territory of the management. It’s the people who do the day-to-day operational work who often have the best ideas for improving organizational performance, both in current operations and in terms of creating new products. To identify how programs and projects are derived, it’s appropriate to examine their sources in the organization. Business planning: Every organization today engages in business planning in some manner. It’s common to have a three- or five-year corporate plan and a shorter one year strategic plan. The corporate plan will set the future direction of the organization and establish broad targets. The strategic plan is a more detailed documentation of how the organization will meet the corporate plan through the next financial year. Incremental growth: Greater effort will be directed towards achieving the operational targets for the year. Everyone whose job contributes to achieving the growth of current operations set out in the strategy seeks to improve performance. Continuous improvement is not to be undertaken via an initiative or campaign; it should be part of everyday work and a way of life for everyone. Everyone should seek always to find better ways to do the job so as to make the organization more effective and more efficient. Sometimes good ideas that come from continuous improvement activity in one part of the organization may have benefits for other functions. A considerable effort with a cross-functional team may then be needed to make a significant change effectively. The organization can gain consider ably from treating this type of continuous improvement as a stand-alone project, because of the size and complexity of the work involved. Step change growth Most program and project activity in an organization starts by someone recognizing the importance of addressing specific needs or opportunities now to yield increased defined benefits in the future. The purpose is to give the organization something that does not yet exist but is clearly defined as essential or highly desirable to support the process of achieving the strategic plan for the year. Some programs may be of longer life and directed towards the corporate objectives within the three- or five-year plan. It may be considered necessary to start a program comprising several projects that are connected by a common overall objective, as in our earlier example of a cost reduction program. All have one important characteristic: they involve a step change or quantum leap from current business process or operations. They are directly derived from the organization's vision for the future and form a significant contribution towards achieving that vision. How does this affect you as the program or project manager? You have an interest in success, and a key element of success is the team, i.e. the people doing the work. It’s not enough to just hand out the work you decide is necessary. The people in the team must participate in all aspects of the work from the start-up and definition through to completion. You can get the team motivated, enthusiastic about the work and focused on the objectives if you can explain the context of the program or project within the organization's strategy. Then everyone understands why the program or project exists, its importance and its relative priority compared with other work. Occasionally you may be faced with a mandatory project - a change controlled by an external requirement such as new UK legislation, EU directives or health and safety requirements. Such projects often don’t arouse enthusiasm but are still important for the organization and are always part of strategy. After all, failure to comply may lead to legal and commercial difficulties or financial penalties. === ACTIVE PROGRAMS & STAND-ALONE PROJECTS NEW IDEAS OPPORTUNITIES STEP CHANGE GROWTH BUSINESS STRATEGIES CORPORATE STRATEGIC OBJECTIVES REVIEW AND PRIORITIZE CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT PORTFOLIO OF APPROVED ACTIVE PROGRAMS AND STAND-ALONE PROJECTS BUSINESS BENEFITS -- CURRENT OPERATIONS INCREMENTAL GROWTH === THE DYNAMIC LIFE CYCLE Because the program or project has such specific characteristics, all limited by time, it naturally goes through a life cycle, just as a product does. The difference here is that the life cycle is dynamic and subject to reiteration at any time during the project. The front end of any program or project is marked by the initial decision to proceed. This start-up is often very 'woolly' and ill defined, and will be discussed in more detail in Section 5. All programs and projects given an initial approval to start go through a similar life cycle, comprising four fundamental phases: • Opportunity identified. An opportunity is identified for a new product, new system or process, new manufacturing facilities or business process. If it’s considered a valid opportunity within the current strategy then it passes into Phase Zero. • Phase Zero: Selection. An opportunity is examined in some detail and subjected to rigorous selection tests and criteria by the business group or department making the proposal. A decision must be made to proceed and commit resources to the work and pass into Phase One. • Phase One: Definition. Phase One is the start of the real work once needs have been clearly identified and the project can be defined with the agreement of those people with an interest in the outcomes. Once all definition work is complete and approved then Phase Two can be entered. • Phase Two: Planning. Phase Two is the processes of planning to derive a realistic schedule taking into account all the constraints that can be identified at this stage. When all those with an interest in the outcomes have approved the plans, the actual work can start, which is Phase Three. • Phase Three: Execution. Phase Three involves launching the actual work, ensuring everyone understands the plan; the controls you impose on the process; and making sure the plan is always up to date with any changes that occur. When all work is successfully complete and no outstanding major issues are unresolved then entry to Phase Four is approved. • Phase Four: Closure. Formal closure is agreed with the customer. All work is complete and the acceptance and handover signed off. Any follow-on activities are identified and assigned and the evaluation process is completed. === REVIEW & EVALUATE MONITOR PROGRESS DEFINE OBJECTIVES MONITOR PROGRESS PLAN THE WORK COMMUNICATE THE PLAN Problem CONCEPTION & DEFINITION REDEFINE REPLAN PHASE 1 PHASE 2 PHASE 3 PHASE 4 PLANNING AND SCHEDULING EXECUTING THE WORK HANDOVER AND CLOSURE PHASE 0 OPPORTUNITY SELECTION OPPORTUNITIES IDENTIFIED REVIEW & EVALUATE MONITOR PROGRESS DEFINE MONITOR PROGRESS PLAN THE WORK Problem PHASE 1 1 PHASE 0 Problem
=== THE DYNAMIC ACTION CYCLE In practice these phases are only a convenient way to help you to separate the program or project work into blocks with a defined sequence. The reality is that no program or project follows such a neat and simple process flow without a significant amount of reiteration. At any stage of the work you may have to: • revise the definition and scope; • re-plan part of the work; • revise the schedule; • solve problems; • carry out recovery planning - to recover lost time; • carry out contingency planning - in case a high-risk part of the work goes wrong. The action cycle gives the basic steps that a program or project (or any part of a project) must go through, with the phases identified earlier. FIG. 5 shows the cycle in a graphic form. Completion of any phase in the process requires a decision-making process to be invoked. The work done must be subjected to a rigorous review to determine the validity of allowing the program or project to continue. This decision can commit the organization to using resources that don’t exist, because of other commitments. Many questions must be asked by the management before this decision is made. Too often, rogue programs or projects are allowed to continue unchecked and either subsequently fail owing to there being insufficient resources or seriously affect other important programs by stealing their resources. Clearly, the technical feasibility of continuing must be reviewed at the same time. In the past, many development projects (e.g. for a new product) have become 'runaway trains' consuming huge amounts of resources and still subsequently failing, with large debt write-offs. The risk of such situations occurring can be minimized by using a regular review and decision process. At each of the steps in FIG. 5 it may become necessary to recycle the process and redo some of the work. Such reiteration throughout the process maintains the dynamics. It provides a check that you are doing the right things to keep the work on track to the schedule and achieve the desired outcomes agreed with your customer. === GATE ZERO Decision made by PST to investigate further - apply selection tests & criteria GATE ONE Decision by PST to proceed with a program or project. Gate opens to enter the Definition Phase 1 of the process. Objectives validated to customer & strategic needs GATE TWO Decision by PST to continue with a program or project. Gate opens to enter the Planning Phase 2 of the process, committing resources. GATE THREE Decision by PST to accept the plan, validating the resource needs and priority of the program or project. Commitment to continue by all functions involved and enter the Execution Phase 2 GATES THREE A, B, C… Intermediate review gates set as required by PST. Decision to continue - gate opening validates original decisions at earlier gates. OR Abort & decommission. GATE FOUR Acceptance by PST that work nears successful completion. Handover agreed with customer GATE FIVE Acceptance by PST that program or project is complete. Completion certificate issued. Team disbanded. 2 NEW IDEA OR OPPORTUNITY IDENTIFIED ===
=== THE PROGRAM AND PROJECT PROCESS PHASE GATES For any program or project to achieve success it’s essential to relate the progress through the dynamic action cycle to the organization's strategic needs. As the program or project manager you will always demonstrate that your program or project has clear objectives and that the work is on target. However, the senior management of the organization need to be kept informed and must remain convinced that the costs justify continuing with the work. To achieve this open approach two essential elements are required: • Phase gates ( FIG. 6) to provide entry to each phase of the dynamic action cycle. Each phase gate is opened to allow the work of the program or project to proceed to the next phase. • The program steering team (PST). This team of senior managers of the organization meet at regular intervals to review the status of all active programs and projects. The PST also approves opportunities to be investigated and sets the priorities. We will look in more detail at the PST and how it operates in Section 3. The decision to open a phase gate for any program or project is made only after a review by the PST. The decision is driven by a review of the program or project that covers the following elements: • current progress and identification of slippages; • current risks and issues; • the budget; • priority ranking compared with other active programs and projects; • assessment that appropriate resources are available for the next phase; • confirmation that the program or project is still needed - alignment with strategic needs; • a 'GO/NO GO' decision either to continue or to cancel the program or project. The review outcome is dependent on information you present to the PST. Occasionally it may even be necessary for you to make specific recommendations concerning revisions to the objectives, scope or current plans, or even to cancel the work. This ensures that decisions are confronted at the appropriate time in the dynamic action cycle. IS THE PHASE GATE A CONSTRAINT? You may consider that the concept of phase gates is imposing more bureaucracy on you as the program or project manager. The only apparent constraint is preventing some work in the next phase from starting early because resources are available and you keep the work rolling along. The real purpose of the phase gate is to focus the mind of everyone with an interest in your program or project, encouraging them to take a deep breath and ask 'where are we now?' After a detailed review the PST is primarily concerned to seek answers to three questions: • Is the program or project still viable? The PST must be satisfied that the planned benefits meet their original expectations and the costs have not exceeded the planned budget. • Is the priority the same relative to other programs or projects? The PST decides the relative priority of all active programs and projects, taking into account the costs, benefits and resource availability. • Is funding still available? The PST must decide to continue funding the work when reviewing all other commitments. In some circumstances the work may be slowed to make money available for other activities. After a successful review, and if the answers to the above questions are satisfactory, the next phase gate is opened and a 'GO' decision recorded. However, the PST may instead decide on one of three primary options: • Terminate - cancel the program or project and initiate decommissioning procedures immediately to minimize collateral damage. • Suspend work - stop all work temporarily for a specified period. This may be due to a change of priority, the need to move resources to another program or a demand for a review of strategic needs. • Reiterate - go back and repeat past work or additional work in the current phase, with revisions to the definition, scope or plans. Any of these options will lead to a 'NO GO' decision. If the decision is 'Reiterate', then you will be expected to action the reasons for the decision and then present your program or project again for review at a future meeting of the PST. IS THIS CONTROL NECESSARY? This amount of control may seem excessive when first considered. However, many organizations have now realized the importance of ensuring that expenditure is incurred on realistic business needs, and this approach provides a valuable process. This does not mean creativity is killed but it does direct all innovation into areas that benefit the business. It ensures that wild ideas are reviewed in the context of business strategy even if this is subsequently revised and involves the senior management team together in making such decisions. Program management is an enabling process that focuses on account ability for initiating and conducting programs and projects to grow the business. SUMMARY • Programs and projects are an essential part of a change process. • Program management: - enables informed decisions; - ensures focus on the business's strategic needs; - helps maintain control of business growth. • Programs and projects are a means to: - implement business strategies; - achieve step changes; - continuously improve business performance; - involve people across the organization; - break down functional barriers. • Programs and projects: - depend on people and effective teamwork; - are unique activities; - are concerned to create something that does not yet exist; - have specific and desired outcomes with clear benefits; - are subject to risk. • All programs and projects follow a dynamic life cycle: - selection; - definition; - planning; - execution; - closure. • Program and project management is different from other management roles because: - it’s a temporary role only for the period of the life cycle; - the team membership is flexible and changes as project needs vary; - it’s a time- and resource-limited activity. |
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