It is important to recognise that the terms in programme management are loose and have not yet settled down.
These short notes provide five definitions of programme management. The fact that there are five similar but different definitions tells you much about the start of the art. These definitions will help you understand which bits of programme management, if any, might be useful to you.
This is an edited extract taken from Programme Management Demystified available from our bookshop or your local bookstore ISBN number: 0-419-213350-3
The CCTA’s Introduction to Programme Management has already helped. The CCTA is the Government Centre for Information Systems. CCTA is the abbreviation for the Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency.
The CCTA, especially when it comes to programme management, publish loads of useful stuff aimed at the non-commercial world where
1: The CCTA definition of programme management is:
The co-ordinated management of a portfolio of projects to achieve a set of business objectives.
The CCTA’s Introduction to Programme Management talks about defining the long term objectives of the organisation. Once these long term objectives are established the organisation identifies projects that help attain these objectives and thinks carefully about the benefits these projects are designed to bring about.
It advises that the organisation set up assorted structures to manage the programme and keep the strategic objectives in mind. The sort of projects are likely to change the organisation itself, after all we are talking about relocation projects, rationalisation and re-organisation projects. So to give the organisation a chance to stop and take a look at what has changed, what is to change next and to compare all of that with those highly significant overall objectives the CCTA recommend achieving ‘islands of stability’. Whilst on an island, the ground is firmer under foot and you are better able to take stock of the past, present and future. Several thousand marks out of ten for the person who dreamed up that phrase.
If you are in a publicly funded body or indeed any large organisation about to go through considerable internal change the CCTA’s publications on programme management are well worth a look.
They do not mention the idea of seeking work through competing for projects or projects that bring new products to market. The most avid readers of the CCTA’s publications are more likely to be inviting tenders for work than submitting quotations for work.
The CCTA approach to programme management is at its most appropriate when applied to a publicly funded body. It is just fine when dealing with the privatisation of British Rail or the decentralisation of the Gas Board. There are many more meanings of the term programme management. Here are the more common meanings:
2: The Multi-Project Organisation
Programme Management is the directing of a portfolio of projects which benefit from a consolidated approach.
Jobbing engineering companies, software houses contracting for work and many other types of organisation run many simultaneous projects each of which may or not contribute towards the corporate goals.
Typically the result of such a project is a deliverable which is eventually delivered to a client for payment. After many delays the payment arrives and gets paid into the company’s bank account thereby increasing cash flow which is achieving one of the company’s objectives.
Sometimes the projects are much more directly aimed at corporate goals - opening a new factory or launching a new product - spring to mind.
The common elements of the projects are that they run simultaneously or at least overlap with each other, they share resources and are supposed to generate some income. One project being cancelled does not necessarily change the organisation’s general direction.
Royal Ordnance is fairly typical of this sort of organisation. They have a large number of projects in hand on a number of localities. Something between 100 and 200 projects is probably a reasonably average and most of these involve developing some awful machine to annihilate people. Each weapon will be developed into a prototype before extensive testing (without volunteers) and a short production run before delivery to a ‘friendly’ nation. Why such a friendly nation should want to blow up so many people is a mystery to me.
Such projects might have one or two engineers devoted to the project for a period of time plus a range of specialists who services have to be begged, borrowed or stolen.
Once upon a time Royal Ordnance used to operate on a cost plus basis claiming that it was the only way to work on sensitive, quality related products like guns and missiles. In those days the organisation was separated into functional departments like design, prototyping and testing but there was no one especially interested in projects at all. No one that is apart from the salesman whose commission depended on delivery and the client who was waiting for the deliverables. The client might be fending off warring factions as he awaits his delivery.
Hence salesmen and clients became projects managers and chased their projects about the organisation as the projects drifted aimlessly from department to department gathering costs and therefore income for the manufacturer. Projects accidentally fell out of the door into the client’s arms not so much because they had finished but because Royal Ordnance couldn’t find any more believable reasons to do more work and therefore raise costs.
If it wasn’t for the fact that Royal Ordnance still make nasty devices, you would say things are loads better these days. They create projects to develop a new device, allocate project managers, build project teams and run a sophisticated programme management system.
These types of programme run for ever and need have no end date. The projects are separate in that there need not be logical links between projects. Whilst they share the same resources, delays in one project need not cause delays in others.
3: The Mega Project
The management of a portfolio of projects towards one specific objective.
Programme management can also mean one very large project. The USA’s Man on the Moon Project was such a programme. In this sense the term programme indicates one very large project which is made up from a number of components. This term is so American I shall drop the ‘me’ from programme. Within the Apollo program there were many projects: the Lunar Lander, the Orbiter, the Launcher and the Control Systems were all projects which were so large, complex and interesting that any red blooded project management person would have given their right arm to be involved. Polaris and the Manhattan project (which resulted in the nuclear bomb) are other famous projects large enough to be called programs. Therefore, particularly in USA, the word program refers to a series of projects which make up one large project.
The reconstruction of Beirut is thought of as a program. The war torn (isn’t that a hackneyed phrase) city is to be re-built. There will be many separate projects each of which will create a government building, a shopping centre, a school or whatever. Together they will become the downtown area of Beirut. You might go there for your summer hols soon. There is a program management team in overall control of a number of project managers each of which is running a construction project.
The program is usually reflected in the management structure as there will be a program manager to whom the project managers will report. Said program manager or sometimes program director will concern himself with recruiting and maintaining his project management teams and on integrating the deliverables of each project into one overall program. In this meaning of program management there is likely to be one physical deliverable.
These sorts of programs end. There will be a time when the overall objective has been achieved and the program and all of its constituent projects are over. There may be a time when everyone has realised how ridiculous the overall objective was and the whole thing has been scrapped but either way the program comes to an end.
The projects within this type of program are often linked. Delays with one project often cause knock on effects with others due to logical links between tasks in both projects. For example if the moon rocket launch pad project was delayed, it would delay the testing of the moon rocket itself. The Beirut Shopping Mall will be of little use without the water treatment plant and the new sewer scheme. Such projects may not share the same resources but there are almost certain to be linked through their logic.
4: Many Projects for One Client
The management of a series of projects within an organisation and for the same client.
Let’s consider a company performing work for many clients with a close relationship with some of those customers. Our supplier might have twenty projects in hand for one particular customer and appoint a programme manager to co-ordinate all the projects in hand for that customer. This programme manager will have a team of project managers each of which is working on a single project for the special client.
An example might be a supplier of components to Ford. Lucas, Girling and Triplex all make a wide range of components that are designed in collaboration with vehicle manufacturers. This collaboration all takes place in secret as the white-coated ones meet to design the next Ford Escort.
Triplex, a part of the Pilkington group, might be working on the next Escort, Mondeo and Transit van all at the same time but the three project teams within Pilkington’s will be working with different project teams within Ford. It makes sense therefore for Triplex to tie these projects together into a programme, to give the programme a manager and to let all the individual projects co-ordinate through this programme manager.
Great ideas from one group get carried over to the other groups. Specialists who work part time on all four projects can no longer take time off smoking behind the bicycle sheds with Milly from catering and expect to get away with it by telling all four project managers that they were working on one of the other projects. Clients who don’t pay their bills on one project may find the other projects held up pending payment.
Such projects are probably not linked logically but almost certainly share the same resources. They may be carried out by different teams within the contracting organisation but probably share the same functional departments.
5: The Programme Management Organisation
The management of a portfolio of projects all of which aim towards the corporate objectives.
Or
The co-ordinated support, planning, prioritisation and monitoring of projects to meet changing business needs.
Programme management companies run many simultaneous projects each of which leads towards the organisation’s strategic objectives. London Underground Limited (LUL) have objectives like ‘achieving a 98% record in promptness’ and a building society might have objectives like ‘having a branch in every high street’. To achieve these objectives entails many projects - property acquisition and refurbishment, staff training, IT support systems and so on.
LUL have a hierarchical system of developing projects. Each line, Jubilee, Bakerloo and so on, assemble a list of improvement projects that they wish to undertake. This might include new signalling systems, station refurbishment or rolling stock. To get onto a line’s list of preferred projects each group has to dream up some projects, evaluate their likely costs and benefits and compete with other projects to get on the list. Eventually each line puts forward its own list and competes for the investment money against the other lines.
Eventually the cash is allocated and work can begin on the myriad of projects that have successfully passed through this selection process. Ones that fail must wait for another day by which time money might be more plentiful. Sometimes, especially when south of the river Thames, you begin to think that a lot of projects don’t make the grade.
In this environment every project plays its part towards the organisation’s ultimate aims and objectives. Often, as projects are completed, this translates into a revised set of corporate objectives.
This is closer to the CCTA’s definition.
These projects are likely to be linked both logically and by resources. Projects are likely to provide deliverables which are required by other projects. Perhaps a new computer system for line signalling on the underground will be used in many signalling upgrade projects. Also the projects are likely to call upon the same functional departments and resources and battle through the shortage of these common shared resources.
There are five varying very different meanings for programme management. They are share some common factors for example: they all involve many simultaneous projects, they all concentrate on resources and they all need a multi-project view of scheduling.
6: Programme Planning
The term programme planning refers to the planning and monitoring of a number of simultaneous related projects. I think I’ll put that in a box so that it stands out a bit.
Programme planning is the planning and monitoring of a number of simultaneous related projects
Programme planning is the constant. Whichever of the definitions of programme management above you choose, or whichever additional definitions you might conceive, the likelihood is that once the projects are defined, you will be in the world of programme planning.
It is in this arena that Hydra is so very beneficial.