Program Management Assignment: Learning from Portfolio Analysis Report

This report analyzes a program management assignment, focusing on portfolio analysis and strategic recommendations for a startup company, VANT. It highlights the importance of program management in addressing organizational challenges, particularly in high-technology manufacturing. The report recommends implementing program management to improve communication, decision-making, and manufacturing efficiency. It also examines the advantages and disadvantages of the TSU approach, a software development unit, and its rapid release model. The report emphasizes the need for effective stakeholder engagement and provides insights into program stakeholder engagement. The report concludes by discussing the effectiveness of program management in achieving business objectives and offers recommendations for optimizing project outcomes.

Running head: PROGRAM MANAGEMENT ASSIGNMENT
Program Management Assignment
Name of the student:
Name of the university:

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Learning from Portfolio 1
1. Importance of program management
The portfolio 1 entry content is focused on a startup company VANT founded in the year
of 2005 in the high technology manufacturing industry which delivers various build in order
products to consumers. Due to enough of economic support the similar type of rest of the
companies are facing major application challenges but VANT is getting rapid strategic growth.
The organizational strategy designed for the company is appreciable as it works fairly in the
industry (Fleming & Koppelman, 2016). As per the consumers request the functions get
activated and the products are produced. The needs of communication between the departments
are less, due to the design approach. On the other hand the design complexity increases rapidly
with the product demands.
In order to reduce such complexities more interaction among the departments are
required. Multiple numbers of deliveries have been slipped and it is defined that for VANT these
particular issues will keep on growing. In order to reduce these identified issues it is mandatory
for the company to implement the most suitable management approaches because the aim of the
company is to incorporate proper change management approaches. With the changed
organizational structure it can facilitate proper communication and effective decision making
(Haas, 2016). This strategy will speed up the manufacturing approach.

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2. Recommendations
After analyzing the details of the application and facilities delivers by VANT it is
recommended that, program management is an appropriate approach that can resolve the issues
completely. Program management is referred to as one of the most crucial approaches which can
lead a company towards commercial and economic success. Program management is comprises
of multiple numbers of independent projects and all the projects are served by the company so
that it can reach the objectives of the company. In other words, for this company the term
program is a master project which is comprises of different subprojects. As per the standards of
program management it is defined that, many other factors are associated to program
management. It will help them company to define the interfaces with an aligned schedules. Not
only this but also, the identified risks can all managed accurately for the coordinated resources
and a joint change control.
Though, there is no such difference between the application and function of program
management and project management. The misunderstandings regarding discriminations
between two disciplines can be reinforced with the program management approach. Apart from
this it helps to achieve the business objectives accurately. Moreover, it can be said that program
management can create a successful kink between the business strategies with products
manufacturing and development. On the other hand, the program management is referred to as a
fundamental flaw in the business thinking process.
Program management has a strategic nature whereas; the nature of project management is
tactical. With the successful coordination between many projects all at a time can lead to
successful program management. The program management is cross functional in nature.
Therefore, in order to combat the identified functional and operational issues of VANT the

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concept of program management can be implemented as its nature is applicable due to its
technical and business nature. From the business point of view it seems to be feasible as it
ensures that, all the common business processes can be used individually for all the projects. A
broader range of project management, business and leadership is needed for managing the issues
of VANT.
3. Approach to the problem
Project management deals management of only one project at a tome whereas; the
program management is focused on management of several projects at a time. The objectives of
the company are to successfully manufacture and deliver products to consumers and getting
competitive advantages from competitive market (Harrison & Lock, 2017). In order to deliver
single element for a complete project program management approach is appreciable. All
involved elements to the projects and programs are to be identified an analyzed by the assigned
project manager of the company. With the help of program management, a well coordination and
synchronization can be processed and executed at the program levels.
In order to process any project for VENT phase gate lifecycle model is required to be
implemented by the project managers. At the same time managing all projects successfully is a
complex responsibility for the project manager and project team members (Kerzner & Kerzner,
2017). A successful program management approach is comprises of business objectives and
program management, program work breakdown structure (WBS), program planning and
program success criteria. These are the different levels of program management hierarchy.
Multiple numbers of interdependent programs can be successfully implemented through
the program management approach. It enables the operational and functional executive of the

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company to achieve the intended business objectives of the company. Project complexities will
be minimized if the project manager successfully achieves the intended project objectives within
estimated project timeframe. In order to successfully achieve additional market share, quality as
well as consumer support project focused activities are required to be implemented. All defined
activities are required to be successfully performed by the project manager and the project team
members (Mir & Pinnington, 2014). According to the program planning individual dates the
plans are to be synchronized.
Learning from Portfolio 2
From the program perspectives description of the advantages and disadvantages of TSU
approach
TSU is a 21person unit that is established for the development of the proprietary software
management tool for another company named as OzChinz. The TSU is headquartered in Perth
and on the other hand the OzChinz is headquartered in Sydney. The TSU is assigned for the
development of software tool for the purpose of testing different microprocessors.TSU company
used to tae huge time for the identification of the resources and gathering resources from those
locations (Pilepic, Simunic & Car, 2015). Traditionally it used to take around 6 months for
gathering data. Not only this but also they used to collect even in the project ongoing phase
which was also quite time taken. In order to satisfy every those person who are involved to the
projects, they had seen that list of features are increasing rapidly and fulfillment of all those
features are quite difficult.
For avoiding the cost overrunning ad time over allocation issues they had to drop some of
the features intentionally. The managers and team mates collectively took the responsibility of

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analyzing all these difficult situations. Regarding time management and project scope the
company is facing challenges accordingly (Gosling et al., 2015). The negative consequences and
other project issues should be minimized by the project managers. From the organizational
structure analysis it is defined that, the business mode of TSU is changed and converted to a
rapid release model. With the help of “release model”, the quality of newly developed products
will be improved. The advantage and disadvantages of the approaches offered by TSU are
elaborated in the below section:
The rapid release approach developed by TSU supports frequent as well as smaller
projects. In addition to this, each of the smaller projects is concentrated to implementation of
smaller numbers of projects only. At the project initiation phase during development, in
particular the project scope should be released based on the program life cycle. Each of the
associate project scope holds around 2 or 3 different level of project characteristics.
The program life cycle approach took place at the project discovery phase this is one of
the major advantages for this approach (Shi et al., 2015). Before final launch all requested
program features expected to be corporate must be approved by the project managers. The
assumed program which is going to be developed by the project manager of TSU is named as
program X. Handling a large project like X is seems to be very difficult which is a disadvantage
from the program management perspectives. As soon as the large project X is divided into small
parts such as XA the management approach become easier to manage. The project stars with the
programming part and it is mandatory for the project manager to accomplish their job roles all
successfully.

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Each and every part will be executed individually considering project requirements. The
first part of the project is named as Xa and second part of the large project as Xb then, those
individual parts should be executed through approval from the project manager. This is another
advantage from the project perspectives as a chance of occurrence of error gets reduced
(Cloutier, Myers & Asprea-Wright, 2017). Before merging the information gathered from the
sub projects the final integrated project is formulated that reduces the project level errors.
Frequent participation in project keeps the project team members engaged to the current
technologies and also helps to keep them updated enough. The project team member learns the
way of working together as a project team.
It helps the way through which the internal team conflict can be successfully avoided.
Though, based on skills and knowledge of the members all the job roles are assigned. As per
allotted job roles if the responsibilities are served then, the project objective will meet by the
members sooner (Nagovitsyn et al., 2015). The approach of change management will generate
faulty results if all specific requirements are not identified accordingly. Therefore, it is defined
that there are equal advantages and disadvantages associated to this specific approach.
Explanation on the effectiveness of program management approach
Based on the current situation it has been defined that, there are certain managerial,
functional as well as operational issues associated to the offered services and applications. In
order to give an error free service level opportunity to design and develop a software
development tool for manufacturing purpose, OzChinz should select the most suitable company
instead of TSU. Different benefits are expected from successful program management such as
project management is referred to as an ad hoc activity.

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Most the business corporation uses the concept of project management and program
management for managing the business operations and functionalities successfully (Gosling et
al., 2014). Mostly the business organizations that are dealing with change management apply the
concept of program management in their business organization. Regardless of the size of the
company and project the program management approach should be utilized by the project
managers. The project manager and project team members require getting a comprehensive view
of the business activities which TSU may fail to deliver (Klochko et al., 2016). In most cases this
issue occurs because the large projects run many projects at the same time. However, for running
all the projects simultaneously at a time the program office is responsible. The project office is
responsible to make a comparison between the change request and the activities that are operated
for implementing those mandatory changes.
Also they should make sure that no such duplicity over the project efforts are entertained
by the project manager. In order to make sure that project team members and project managers
are focused to their strategic goals that time the program manager should evaluate the accordance
evaluates (Khan et al., 2017). Even if a project is successfully completed does not mean that the
final project result will add values to this. TSU service providers fail to give all necessary efforts
though which the project requirements can meet the preliminary project objectives. Therefore, as
per the project requirements it can be said that OzChinz should extend to other business
organizations to meet the project activities.
Learning from Portfolio 3: Program Stakeholder Engagement
Summary of recommendations

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The role of a program manager to keep the rest of the members engaged to their job roles
are demonstrated in this report section. From the analysis report it is determined that, the Schools
Minister in State Government is concentrating to those set of data gathered from the New South
Wales (NSW) audit. In order to avoid the audit errors professional stakeholder engagement is
very much crucial for program managers. There must be a professional way through which they
need to respond. Program stakeholder management is one well known approach that has to be
utilized. Not only this, but also detail stakeholder management principles are also elaborated in
this section considering program management academic literatures (Thompson et al., 2017). The
local authority currently has total of 36 schools in their area that offers catering services to all
age group children. Among them 12 schools have swimming pools, classrooms and meeting
spaces. However, outside the formal school timing none of the community is being utilized. It is
determined that, most of the [parents with whom they have interacted did not support the data of
the audits. In order to avoid these issues proper recommendations are also elaborated in the
below section.
Current stakeholder management principles
The Clarkson Principles of stakeholder’s management are elaborated in the below
section:
Principle 1: It is responsibility of the project managers to acknowledge and actively
monitor all the concerns related to legitimate stakeholders and also they must take care of
interest accurately in account for decision making as well as functional operations (Sohmen &
Dimitriou, 2015).

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Principle 2: All the project managers are needed to communicate accurately with the
stakeholders engaged to the project regarding the contribution and respective concerns. It will
successfully minimize project related risks that are assumed due to the involvement with the
corporation.
Principle 3: This is the responsibility of the project managers to adopt suitable modes
and processes related to behavior those are enough sensitive with the abilities and concern of
stakeholders constituency (Okiura & Kubo, 2018).
Principle 4: The interdependency of the efforts must be recognized by the project
managers and according to that rewards are also to be arranged. Based on the skills and
knowledge the work burden should be divided to make sure that the work is completing within
the estimated period. If these activities are equally distributed among the team members then all
the risks and vulnerabilities will be reduced.
Principle 5: Cooperation among the project team members is also necessary for
successful completion of the work activities. Both the private and the public entities should be
considered by the project manager.
Principle 6: Work ethics are another thing on which they should focus on. The project
managers should avoid all together activities those may endanger some of the absolute human
rights. It will help them to identify all the risks and accordingly those risks will be minimized by
the stakeholder’s engagement.
Principle 7: If any kind of inter organizational conflict occurs then those issues will
resolved accordingly if professionally the stakeholders are connected to their job roles. Open
communication, incentive arrangements and on time reporting are the approaches that will

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ensure the legal and moral responsibilities are all successfully resolved. In addition to this, if the
third party involvements is found to be needed then accordingly monitoring and control over the
activities are required.
Program management academic literature
The numbers of stakeholders may vary for different projects but their roles and
responsibilities never changes that much. Society, community, employees, government,
customers, owners, lenders are the stakeholders generally assigned for any project. It is their role
to accomplish the assigned tasks accordingly. In order to deliver any project successfully the two
ms important ingredients are stakeholder management and stakeholder engagement. However, in
those cases where any of these two approaches are ignored cause serious issues.
Stakeholder management is referred to as a project practice that influence variety of
outcomes with the help of consultation, negotiation, compromise, communication, relationship
building. A project will be easily assisted if all these factors are successfully followed by the
project managers. Before engaging stakeholders to any project the project owners should
understand the project requirements and the respective expected project outcomes also.
Throughout the project development life cycle phases the stakeholders should keep concentrated
to their roles (Tanaka, 2014). Information sharing among the stakeholders is also another
important thing. Stakeholder mapping is an important technique that helps to distribute the
activities among the associate stakeholders.
There are many reasons for which a project generally fails to meet the project activities.
The most common reasons behind such failure are lack of professional communication.
Ineffective and insufficient communication leads to project failure. Poor coordinated team work

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is also root cause for which a project may not reach the estimated project objectives. Proper risk
management is another important thing on which the project manager should concentrate on.
The term program management is referred to as a centralized well coordinated
management approach that helps to facilitate the project activities successfully towards the
success criteria. Rather in order to meet the project objectives and benefits strategic program
management approaches are also very much crucial. A program may include elements of all
related works outside the discrete project scope. In order to manage multiple numbers of projects
all at a time the approach of program management stands crucial (Driscoll et al., 2015). The
operational and functional activities can be accomplished if the program management standards
are professionally identified and followed by the project managers.
Program stakeholder management helps the way through which a program can affect the
stakeholders. The programs of such stakeholder management include organizational culture,
major project issues, barriers and resistance for changes. Proper business level communication
strategies are required to be analyzed and adopted by the project heads to improve the current
business status (Mills & Goldsmith, 2014). Again program governance is another important term
that has to be followed by the project manager.
Learning from Portfolio 4: Successful program management
Program management is referred to as a tough task from the project management
perspectives. With changing time the program continues growing as well as become more
complex. Higher project level complexity leads project towards failure which again expense
more to the project managers than the estimation. The terms program management and project
management are complimentary to each other (Domitrovich et al., 2016). If any of these terms