Understanding Project and Program Management

This assignment delves into the fundamental differences between projects and programs within the realm of project management. It explores distinct characteristics such as objectives, lifecycles, governance structures, and stakeholder involvement for both projects and programs. Understanding these nuances is crucial for effective project and program planning, execution, and ultimately achieving desired business outcomes.

PROJECT AND
PROGRAM
MANAGEMENT

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Table of Contents
Portfolio Entry 1....................................................................................................................................1
Project Vs Program............................................................................................................................1
Reasons for Accepting Mike’s Concept.............................................................................................1
Recommendations to the Company...................................................................................................1
Portfolio Entry 2....................................................................................................................................2
Program Initiation..............................................................................................................................2
Solutions to James.............................................................................................................................2
Recommendations to the Company...................................................................................................3
Portfolio Entry 3....................................................................................................................................3
Program Stakeholder Management....................................................................................................3
Criteria of Success.............................................................................................................................4
Stakeholders......................................................................................................................................4
Meeting with Stakeholders............................................................................................................4
Ideal Decision of the Execution Team...............................................................................................5
Portfolio Entry 4....................................................................................................................................5
Program Governance.........................................................................................................................5
Benefits of the Program Strike Zone..............................................................................................5
Advantages of the Program Strike Zone........................................................................................6
Disadvantages of the Program Strike Zone....................................................................................6
Challenges from the program governance.....................................................................................6
Portfolio Entry 5....................................................................................................................................7
Theory of the Program.......................................................................................................................7
Program Management vs Project Management..............................................................................7
References.............................................................................................................................................8
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Portfolio Entry 1
Project Vs Program
The concepts and guidelines for the Projects and Programs given by Mike Fritz was
nice in my point of view. I agree the things and concepts explained him to Bill. He
differentiates the program and project very clearly through his Black Box concept. The
flexibility provided for the project is also acceptable (Frame, 2012).
Reasons for Accepting Mike’s Concept
 He says that the program is considered as an effort or work that is used to launch new
varieties of products to be sold in the market. They name it as "NPI" (New Product
Introduction). This NPI is not applicable to the projects.
 There are individual program managers to keep track on the programs.
 Program manager need not have more technical knowledge. He wants to lead the
business, so he have to be a business leader.
 The communication skill is enough to be a program manager who needs to know the
strategies to communicate with the people around him.
 All the elements like Market size, Financials, Schedule, resources and requirements of
the customer are treated equally.
 As the box concept purely based on the agreement among the stakeholders, it will
satisfy the stakeholders and their requirements will be met.
 There are indication of the coloured dots which is used to represent the status of the
program. And a warning colour red is used to represent that the program needs concentration
immediately. This alert makes the program managers to sort out the problem instantly.
 The flexibilities are provided to the guidelines of the project. So the project
management team can work freely. The implementation and achieving something is the target
of the project.
 The bounding box is a concept that helps in encouraging the communication skill
among the key roles of the project, stakeholders and the sponsors of the project. So due to
this enhanced communication, better understanding can be attained among the stakeholders,
sponsors of the project and the key responsible persons ("Bounding box techniques to
initialize optimization of primitive geometry fitting", 2004).
Recommendations to the Company
The flexibility in projects may be a benefit for the project team. But if it gets late or
did not get completed on time, then it affects the program deadline. If the project gets delayed
then it also has an impact on the program. Then in every management a strength itself
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becomes a weakness. Both review meetings have to be organized often to check the status
and it also can avoid any issues at the initial stage itself. A small review meeting can be
organized for every week to manage the projects and programs. For making the
implementation with the boundaries, the scope and the cost of the project should not be
changed. A well-planned schedule and milestone has to be developed at the beginning stage
of the project itself. It is not good for the company to change the scope and the cost
estimation of the project after starting the project. So considering the analysis of the overall
concepts of the Mike, it is recommended to have rigid rules and guidelines for both the
projects and programs or else flexibility should be imposed on both programs and projects
(Frame, 2012).
Portfolio Entry 2
Program Initiation
James had been assigned a work to design a fire extinguisher system. He is having 4
tenders in his hand. The team members of the James team is suggesting to choose in their
point of view and to their objectives. For example, financial manager wants to suggest the
less cost extinguisher whereas the safety manager suggest the extinguisher that has lot of
safety in using it. The fire extinguisher system is going to be installed in their new expanded
company which consists of more number of employees. Now their aim is to produce the
extinguisher system with High safety and then it should be meet the standards of the law
(MILOSEVIC, SITPATANAKUL & SRIVANNABOON, 2010).
Solutions to James
The above represented tender of the company named as “Early Birds, Ltd” is
presently considered to be selected. Because it meets the requirement of complying with law
and the spraying capability is up to 250 square meters and also they had already experience in
prior for providing the fire extinguishers. But we are not sure of the safety as it can be
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sprayed only up to 250 Square meters. We need more number of extinguishers for a 20000
square meter covered area of expanded office building. An alternative solution for this is
represented below. It shows that the company has not provided information regarding the
standard of law. It has been designed with water technology. So it is a major advantage and it
is capable of spraying nearly 5000 square meter. Compared to early birds, Zebra is more
costly but There is no maintenance cost for the sets of extinguisher of Zebra Limited. The
maintenance cost of early birds is high and the spraying area is also less. The option is that
contacting the Zebra Limited to confirm about their standards of law, if James is satisfied
with them. Then sure he can choose the Zebra Limited (MILOSEVIC, SITPATANAKUL &
SRIVANNABOON, 2010).
Recommendations to the Company
The company is planning for a expanded building to keep more employees for
working inside that building. So the fire extinguisher system that needs to be installed should
be with high in safety. They should not consider the cost of the fire extinguisher, only its
quality and the ability that can spray and cover how much area. The cost should not be a big
concern, as they are going to spend a big money in the construction process ("A revolution in
the fire suppression technology", 2017). As compared to the construction process funding, the
installation of the fire extinguisher system would not be a big funding for them. Then the
standard is much more important. They have to ensure whether the system meets the
standards and complied with Law. They can make sure with Zebra Limited as they have not
provided the information about the Law clearly. So it is better to choose either Zebra Limited
after confirming the law standards of the company or the Early birds ltd which lies better with
quality and standards next to the Zebra Limited (Park, 2017).
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Portfolio Entry 3
Program Stakeholder Management
The General public Hospital is planning to execute a new program called Time
Keeping System (TKS).
Objective of the Program
The program is going to be implemented for a new time keeping system for the
hospital. The customers are the users of the new system (MILOSEVIC, SITPATANAKUL &
SRIVANNABOON, 2010).
Definition of the Program
The program is named as TKS (Time Keeping System) that can be used for storing
the transactions that are related to the employees. This system is used for integrating the data
about employees, schedules of the labours and then the pay rules that are modified are going
to be stored in the new system (MILOSEVIC, SITPATANAKUL & SRIVANNABOON,
2010).
Criteria of Success
The Time Keeping System program has many success criteria. The main success
criteria is the system produce results with high accuracy. The system is going to be designed
as user friendly. Other successful factors are July go-live and then the total cost for executing
the program is $1 million rupees (MILOSEVIC, SITPATANAKUL & SRIVANNABOON,
2010).
Stakeholders
Stakeholders are the key personalities for any program. The customers and the
stakeholders are the focus groups who gets the impact from the output in executing any new
programs. So engaging a stakeholder in the discussion for executing any new program is very
much important. The stakeholder engagement is an important process to execute any program
and to attain the successful deliverable in any projects ("Definition of STAKEHOLDER",
2017).
Meeting with Stakeholders
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It is very much important to consult the stakeholders at the early stage of the program.
The stakeholders must be considered and met frequently (Jakhar, 2016). So that they will
come to know about the supports, success and risk factors of the new program before
execution. In the case study of General Public Hospital, Julia has done a great job by making
the stakeholders to present in the meeting.
Ideal Decision of the Execution Team
The execution team is the higher authority which is going to execute the new program
called “Time Keeping System”. The program team consists of representatives from various
different groups. The technical team in the program is combined with three analyst for the
system, 1 analyst for checking the quality and a project manager. So they had arranged a
meeting with stakeholders to ask about the execution of the new TKS program. The decision
that has to be taken by the execution team is going to be discussed in this section. It is ideal to
consider the decision of the stakeholders ("Engaging Stakeholders - A strategy for
Stakeholder Engagement", 2017). The program execution team should think deeply regarding
the benefits for the stakeholders, primary customers and end users. They should also consider
the benefits of GPH for implementing this new TKS program. If the new program has more
accuracy in it, then it is better to implement it. The only thing which has to be considered is
the overall cost for the implementation. As it is about $1 million it is better to consult with
the finance team and the stakeholders to implement this program. And they had mentioned
that this system will eradicate the cost that is paid to the part time employees for the current
system. It is ideal to implement the new system in consultation with the suggestions of the
stakeholders ("Stakeholder Engagement", 2014).
Portfolio Entry 4
Program Governance
Program Strike Zone
The Program Strike Zone is known as the concept of bounding box. It is considered to
be an effective tool that can be used for keeping track the status of the programs. This is also
used in achieving the best results by determining the successful criteria for the program
(MILOSEVIC, SITPATANAKUL & SRIVANNABOON, 2010).
Benefits of the Program Strike Zone
 The program strike zone is a tool that is used for communication and the management
purpose. This helps the managers of the program to keep the program in a correct
scope of the business via PLC (Frame, 2012).
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 It is used to identify the successful factors of the program. It is used to set and
communicate the view for the members of the program team and to find the important
elements that exist in the program.
 The Program Strike Zone works effectively in improving the information flow that
has been communicated between the program team and the execution management
team. Because of this effective communication, it becomes easy to evaluate the risks
and barriers of the success. Then the resolutions can be addressed more instantly.
 If the program does not go towards the mission of the company, then this strike zone
will put effort to stop the program immediately.
 The indication of colours like Green, Yellow and Red makes the authorities to pay
attention easily (Martinelli, Waddell & Rahschulte, n.d.).
Advantages of the Program Strike Zone
 The program strike zone process is the amazing process which is user friendly
because of its simplicity and has a high amount of power visually (MILOSEVIC,
SITPATANAKUL & SRIVANNABOON, 2010).
 This zone becomes very useful tool for the managers of the program in which it has
more flexibility.
 This is useful for the project management team and the execution team to make a
clear focus mainly on the risks that affect the program critically (Martinelli, Waddell
& Rahschulte, n.d.).
Disadvantages of the Program Strike Zone
 The advantage of more successful factors embedded in the program strike zone itself
becomes the disadvantage of the program strike zone which makes to reduce the
simple aspects of it (Martinelli, Waddell & Rahschulte, n.d.).
 The boundaries and threshold values are fixed. So the program cannot get exceeded
ahead the boundaries or threshold values (MILOSEVIC, SITPATANAKUL &
SRIVANNABOON, 2010).
 The dates are specified, if the process is unable to be executed within the fixed date
then it is also a main disadvantage for the program.
Challenges from the program governance
The challenge in using the program strike zone is guiding into the program's
objective. If the program is not going through the mission of the company, then the program
is stopped by the strike zone. The another challenge of the strike zone is that the managers of
the program has to follow the objectives and boundaries very strictly. Assigning the executive
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hierarchy, roles and responsibilities of the program all should be under the boundary that is
fixed by the program strike zone. The decision making process which is an important aspect
of the program governance is figured into a single circle which takes the boundaries and the
responsible authorities face difficulties to make decisions within the threshold values. They
have to take immediate actions when the alerts or emergency attention is indicated in using
the program strike zone (Frame, 2012).
Portfolio Entry 5
Theory of the Program
Program Management vs Project Management
The statement that tells the program management is more than the project management's
scaled up version is acceptable. Project management is not only called as an executable
function, but it is also a subordinate to the program management. Managing the projects,
programs and other managements like portfolio management are said to be a broader part that
contains desired with some boundaries and it can undergo some planned and control changes
to some fixed extent. The changes that occur in the project or program's cycle has the relation
with the mission, vision, system and structure of the organization. However projects depend
purely on the scope of the particular project, programs not only depend on its scope but also it
is managed beyond the scope. Project managers do not have more tension as the program
managers. Program managers have to work according to the scope and standards of the
organization whereas the project managers purely works upon the deadline of the projects
itself. Program management is comprised of several different tasks like making the outputs to
some strategic benefits, evaluating the series of the projects, then determining the activities
and steps that are related to the projects individually and then it is used to create a change in
the capability of the organization. Program management has no separate professional body
for it but the project management is dependent on its own professional body. The program
management is totally responsible for any changes that occur in the organization (Levin,
2011). It should follow the objectives, vision and achievement of the organization strict. The
project management and program management has the shared leadership. The leadership is
not given to one person, there are project manager, project lead and then the team lead for the
respective projects. Similarly, the program team also have shared leadership as program team
lead, manager. The project management is not responsible for the changes that occur in the
organization. The authorities of the project management work towards the professional body
that is separate for every projects (Martinelli & Waddell, n.d.). So from the discussed
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differences, as per the researches about project vs program management and the results of the
researches show that the program management is more than a scaled up version of the project
management (Martinelli, Waddell & Rahschulte, n.d.).
References
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