Comparison of Program and Project Management

This assignment is a comparative analysis of program and project management, highlighting their distinct characteristics, roles, and outcomes within an organization. The comparison is based on various sources, including academic journals, books, and online articles. The assignment emphasizes the significance of understanding these differences to ensure effective management and growth of business organizations.

Personal Learning Portfolio

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
PORTFOLIO 1: Project vs. Program...............................................................................................1
1. Approach set out by Mike Fritz at Megatronic company to manage project.....................1
2. Recommendation to differentiae their project and programs in company functions.........3
PORTFOLIO 2: Program Initiation.................................................................................................3
1. Solution to the issues faced by James in Mega Security....................................................3
2. Advice for the company to manage issues as per the perspective of programme..............4
PORTFOLIO 3: Program Stakeholder Engagement........................................................................4
1. Ideal decision for the current program management stakeholder concept made by Executive
Team.......................................................................................................................................4
PORTFOLIO 4: Program Governance............................................................................................6
1. Advantage and disadvantage of the program strike zone concept.....................................6
2. Challenges for the implementation of the program strike zone concept from perspective of
program governance...............................................................................................................6
PORTFOLIO 5: Program Theory....................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Programme management is the scaled up version of Project management. One or more
than one project working for independent gaols in order to achieve integrated target of a big
project is called as a programme. This includes managing different project at various level. The
project and programme can be managed efficiently through developing various new
technological strategies to work efficiently in the working environment. Bounding box is one of
the new approach which companies are following in order to define the programme strike Zone
and work with company's competencies in marketplace (Chatti & et. al., 2012).
In this particular report I will be discussing about 5 different portfolios in order to
develop personal learning in their actions workings as member of of project and programme
management team which will contribute in effective working of organisation. I will be studying
the portfolio of Bounding Box developed in functions of Megatronic in order to learn about the
project and programme of company. Second portfolio is about the company Mega security who
is facing issues in selecting appropriate tool to initiate programme efficiently. General Public
hospital is working for developing an efficient Program Stakeholder Engagement which will be
another portfolio which will contribute in personal learning. While other two portfolios are
Program Governance which is studied thorough The Program Strike Zone in E J Electronics and
Program Theory in order to develop personal learning.
PORTFOLIO 1: Project vs. Program
1. Approach set out by Mike Fritz at Megatronic company to manage project.
Project and programme are two different terms which are used most of the time
interchangeably. But these terms is having different meaning and difference of working style.
Programme can be defined as the activities having long term visions. While the various small
project constitute single programme (Jeng & et. al., 2010). The Mike Fritz is director of project
management department in the Megatronic electronics manufacturing company. He hired Bill at
the salary of programme manger having responsibility to manage the various programme on the
note of various success factor by effectively communicating the plans with team. Mike
implemented an approach namely Bounding Box to manage the project effectively in working
environment. In this apertural approach a box is create with defined boundaries of various factors
that leads to success of an project with effectiveness and efficiency. This particular approach
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does not focusses on the triple constraints of operation like quality, costs and time. While this
approach focuses in the restricting the programme with some elements of boundaries like market
size, financials, aligning with the strategies, schedule to execute results, focuses on requirements
of customers, defined technologies and technical advancement speeds in functioning of any
project. This particular approach provides a free style of working to team members until and
unless any of the actions taken out of the view of boundaries (Valtonen & et. al., 2012). In case
of out of bounds the stakeholders to take an programme revise with prioritising the schedules
and rectifying the mistakes.
I agree with the strategic approach of bounding box followed by Mike Fritz in
organisation action. This strategy is efficient in achieving the targets of company and team more
effectively to achieve the overall targets of programme. The reason behind the implementation of
bounding box approach is that this is an effective approach which binds the team members
within boundaries of some critical success factors and also provides flexibility in action only
within the defined boundaries.
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2. Recommendation to differentiae their project and programs in company functions.
The project and programme in the working of an organisation is having different meaning
in environment. This can be recommended that project is smaller unit working to lower level to
accomplish different goals of an big long term programme (García-Peñalvo & et. al., 2013).
While programme is constituted from one or more than one project working independently to
accomplish various goals that will contribute in achieving the a single unified target of an
project. The project is managed by different team and workers working in a group for shared
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Illustration 1: Program Vs Project, 2014.
Source 1: Manjeet. 2014. Product vs Program vs Project Management. What is the difference?.
[Online]. Available through: <http://www.manjeetjakhar.com/2014/08/product-vs-program-vs-
project.html>. [Accessed on 9th October 2017].

goals which is easy to maintain as per the requirements of firm. While the programme is
managed through involvement of senior management. The Megatrinic is following Bounding
box to maintain the task efficiently by defining its boundaries. This can be recommended that the
firm should implement the respective approach by scheduling the various task of project
efficiently in order to accomplish the higher gaols of an programme effectively. The firm should
appropriately define its boundaries instead of restricting the project on the basis of cost, quality
and time constraints.
Differentiating criteria Program Project
Objectives Multiple Singular
Focus Strategic Non strategic
Extent of Change Broad Narrow
Level of complexity High Low
Overall time limits Loose Rigid
Diversity Multidisciplinary Minimal
PORTFOLIO 2: Program Initiation
1. Solution to the issues faced by James in Mega Security.
James is positioned as project managers in the Mega securities, the manufacturing
company engaged in providing safety instrument to the various industries. As per my study I
reviewed that the company is wanting to initiate a new construction project in order to deliver to
large numbers of client industries (Meyer, E., Abrami & et. al., 2010). The company is wanting
to implement new fire extinguisher equipment in the building. James have to resolve the various
issues faced by the Mega securities in using the different type of fire extinguisher in the
construction unit. I believes that the James is working in integration with various members of
different department like finance, human resource, quality, plant management team, production
and safety management team. The James organised an meeting in order to receive review about
the various needs of the different operational segment of firm with relation to selection of
appropriate fire extinguisher for firm. As per my views there are various problems faced by
James in selection of appropriate fire extinguisher for the Mega Securities are as follows:
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 The major problems that I believe faced by James in taking effective decision is that
every department is having different needs and expectation while selection of an fire
extinguisher.
 Other problems arises in selection of the right fire extinguisher equipment for newly
constructed building against the James is that how the various needs and wants of
individual departments can be integrated as one leading to the great success of project
plan and the for the growth of firm is a unit (Richardson & Mancabelli, 2011).
 Other problem arises in front of James is the there are major four supplier of fire
extinguishers equipments that can be installed in new constructed unit namely Fire
Extinguisher, Early Birds, Ltd., Xtra Care, Ltd. and Zebra Limited who are offering the
product having distinction in prices, quality, maintenance and functionalities with using
different technologies of action like chemical - based, form - based, water – based.
2. Advice for the company to manage issues as per the perspective of programme.
As per my perception I will advice to James should be responsible towards these
perspective issues and should make effective and efficient decision which will contribute in the
overall profitability of the firm. I add on that as a project manager James have to take appropriate
decision after consulting with the mangers of other operational department of the organisation
(Huang & Wu, 2011). There are some advice which can be given me to James in selecting
appropriate choice of fire extinguisher which are to be installed in the new constructed building
among various alternatives available to him are as follows:
 According to my opinion James have to avoid sub optimization. As this will leads to huge
confusion in defining goals and objectives.
 The firm should important appropriate strategies in order to focus on the targets which
will benefits the company as whole.
 The James should select appropriate fire extinguisher which is having long work life and
does not need to replace the system again and again.
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PORTFOLIO 3: Program Stakeholder Engagement
1. Ideal decision for the current program management stakeholder concept made by Executive
Team.
I studied that The TKS system plans are going through development stages in order to
develop an efficient programme to manage the employee activity and better quality services in
the General public hospital. According to me the hospital services should be of good quality in
order to satisfy their employees, patient efficiently and become national and internal leaders in
health care sector. I can predict form my analysis that the general public hospital is going
through huge management changes (Cáceres, Chamoso & Azcárate, 2010). The company is
following an Time keeping system which have to be replaced by firm because of the existing
vendors sell the company to other organisation. So, I believes that the programme managers of
general public hospital is planing to important new TKS system i.e. Time Keeping system in
organisational operations so the company can follow up an efficient payroll activities in firm.
According to me The organisation is engaged with the program planning stage and entered the
stage of programme execution. This stage is development on the three prospective of the planned
system, which follows decision of go, Kill or Hold. Go is for implementing the plan, Kill the
decision that leads to termination of program while Hold describes that sate of reformation and
have to implement later (Hwang & Chang, 2011). The Stakeholders engagement is necessary for
the General public hospital in order to come up with effective and profitable decisions. Some of
the advice to the senior management team in making decisions are as follows:
Julia: She is project manager in the organisation and studies about the efficiently of new
Time keeping system along with the Tom and Stachey to bring championing in TKS system. She
develop an autonomous team for the TKS plans in action of general public Hospital.
Payroll specialist Stacey Cook: Julia goes through one to discussion with the Stachey in
order to know the needs of the employees is manager of payroll team. The employee should be
patrolled on time by maintaining efficient terms on their leaves, Clock in and clock out times.
Stachey added that the plan in going with schedule and as per payroll specialist view the system
can be efficiently installed in firm.
Information technology member Tom Black: He add on that the current system do not
company with the new technologies. Th firm can go for adding new hardware which will helps
in updated version of time keeping system with newer features. After asking form vendors he
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add on that the new hardware take 2 more months to be installed and additional cost of 100000
dollars.
John Menegy, CIO: John is wanting to deliver efficient services to the customer in order
to become most valuable firm in the sector of health and services. John took an lead to install the
new up gradation in the time keeping system in organisation (Leone, 2013).
John Bacon customer relationship director: As discussing with the focus group he
concluded that the firm should take care of quality of the services and the main focus should be
on quality.
Art Counter payroll director: Adding on the above stakeholders discussion as a payroll
director agrees with the focus group advice that firm should go for quality improvement in
process. The whole team come up with the decision of holding the plan for 2 more months with
further adding on new software of 100000 dollars to focus on the quality of payroll activities to
satisfy the employee and become leaders in the health and acre services.
PORTFOLIO 4: Program Governance
1. Advantage and disadvantage of the program strike zone concept.
A J electronic is an small electronic company serving their services to the health and care
industry. The company is dealing in developing measurement devices. I personally accept that
the Programme strike Zone can be efficient approach in order to define the various boundaries of
the performance and developing an efficient plan of execution, this particular approach restricts
the performance in the basis of various boundaries (Bodie, 2013). I analysed that the work
within the boundaries bring higher flexibilities but out of the boundaries activities will be highly
restricted by senior management. 3
As per my perception benefits of Programme Strike Zone (PSZ) are that this is an
effective approach to manage the projects in the basis of critical success factors and this bring
higher flexibilities in actions and provides higher scope of modifications and changes as per need
of workers and employees. Some of the advantage of the process is the PSZ brings simplicity in
actions and having graphical appeal to enhanced the visual power. This focuses on the
highlighting the tasks and actions on the basis of different colour by defining their helping need,
Hold on aspects and good progresses. While the major disadvantage of this PSZ approach is that
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is the numbers of critical success factor increases this will looses its simplicity and difficult to
analyse the complexity of actions with the targets of programme.
2. Challenges for the implementation of the program strike zone concept from perspective of
program governance.
As per my analysis the major challenge of this particular approach of programme zone
concept is that it is difficult to to change the comprehensive targets of EJ electronics in firm. I
believes that the goals of any firm are having lengthy format of actions (García-Peñalvo & et.
al., 2014). This can not be quoted in small lines. This is the major challenge to efficiently
manage this particular approach of PSZ. The another challenges to approach can be managing
the relation between the programme plan and its execution as per needs of the goals of firm and
senior executives. The firm can defined various critical factors that will contribute to the success
of organisation in many fold with helps in installation of PSZ appropriately in company
operations.
PORTFOLIO 5: Program Theory
I agree with the statement that “Although it is in practice difficult to make a clear
distinction between a program and a project, program management is more than a scaled-up
version of project management, because programs include elements that are outside the scope of
individual projects within a program”. The reason behind this agreed nature of mine is that I
personally believes that the programme is an bigger view of small projects working for an single
big targets. The programme is having different aspect that are to managed at smaller level of
different projects. The programme have to be managed in different aspects like Governance,
managing action plan, financial management gaols, maintaining infrastructure to execute action
plan and planning the various activities. The programme is consisting of various project which
manages above defined project. So, this can be stated that programme is having wider
prospective as compared to the project. Programme is having large are to cover under its action
plan while the project is working for single short term goal. Program involves various critical
success factors which do not contribute in the individual project but its affects the functioning of
all the projects. These crucial factor are the summed up version of various small aspects that
influence the different projects working for the targets of an long term actions program of
company.
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CONCLUSION
This can be ended with the discussion of above report with concluding that the project
management is the important defining aspect of the performance and success of an firm. Through
discussion over the various portfolio of different commercial firms the individual can engaged
their personal learning evidences upon the theoretical knowledge. In this particular report the 5
portfolio are discussed which helps in personal learning about the project and programme
management. This can be added that Bounding box is a newer concept in highlighting the
various critical aspects of the performances required to accomplish the gaols of organisation as
whole by manages different projects at smaller level. This can be ended up with the statement
that the programme is enlarged version of small projects. This involves various defining
prospective restricted with the performance boundaries that which provides direction to the
cations of small projects and comer upon with integrated result for growth of business
organisation.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Bodie, (2013). Investments. McGraw-Hill.
Cáceres, Chamoso & Azcárate, (2010). Analysis of the revisions that pre-service teachers of
mathematics make of their own project included in their learning portfolio. Teaching
and Teacher Education. 26(5). 1186-1195.
Chatti & et. al., (2012). Toward a personal learning environment framework. Design,
implementation, and evaluation of virtual learning environments. IGI Global. 20-40.
García-Peñalvo & et. al., (2013). TRAILER project (Tagging, recognition, acknowledgment of
informal learning experiences). A Methodology to make learners’ informal learning
activities visible to the institutions.
García-Peñalvo & et. al., (2014). Informal learning recognition through a cloud ecosystem.
Future Generation Computer Systems. 32. 282-294.
Huang & Wu, (2011). A Systematic Approach for Learner Group Composition Utilizing U-
Learning Portfolio. Journal of educational technology & society. 14(3).
Hwang & Chang, (2011). A formative assessment-based mobile learning approach to improving
the learning attitudes and achievements of students. Computers & Education. 56(4).
1023-1031.
Jeng & et. al., (2010). The add-on impact of mobile applications in learning strategies: A review
study. Educational Technology & Society. 13(3). 3-11.
Leone, (2013). Characterisation of a personal learning environment as a lifelong learning tool.
Springer Science & Business Media.
Meyer, E., Abrami & et. al., (2010). Improving literacy and metacognition with electronic
portfolios: Teaching and learning with ePEARL. Computers & Education. 55(1). 84-91.
Richardson & Mancabelli, (2011). Personal learning networks: Using the power of connections
to transform education. Solution Tree Press.
Valtonen & et. al., (2012). Perspectives on personal learning environments held by vocational
students. Computers & Education. 58(2). 732-739.
Online
Manjeet. 2014. Product vs Program vs Project Management. What is the difference?. [Online].
Available through: <http://www.manjeetjakhar.com/2014/08/product-vs-program-vs-
project.html>. [Accessed on 9th October 2017].
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