Program Management

Program: Set of related projects that are grouped together.
Program Management: Program management is the centralized management of all the projects within a program with the purpose of achieving the program objectives.
Program Manager: The program manager is an individual that manages a program. They also manages multiple project managers each assigned to an individual projects within the program. The main purpose of program is to benefit from managing projects together rather than individually.

The reasons to group projects:

• Common Resources required among projects
• Sub Projects of the same project
• Dependency on one another
• Repetitive multiple projects within the program, etc.

The benefits:

• Improved Management
• Higher Chance of Success
• Cost Saving

The program management is very big subject and I will post more in my coming posts. That's the reason PMI has introduces a special certification for Program Management by name Program Management Professional Certification (PgMP).

Project Stakeholder

Stakeholder: A stake holder can be either an individual or an organisation with a vested interest in the project. They are also actively involved in the project. The stakeholders are critical because the project manager have an obligation to meet their expectations. There could be number of stakeholders within the project and project manager should manage them carefully because not doing so can cause the downfall of the project.

Imagine a group of stakeholders, all with their own opinions and personal interests regarding the project requirements. Now it is responsibility of project manager to getting these group of people to agree on a set of requirements. That's not very easy task. The requirements must be identified properly and the disagreements over the requirements are to be resolved. Let's think that you have missed a requirement held by a key stakeholder for some reason and it is now been determined that the project must include this new requirement. That responsibility does fall on the project manager's shoulders to make sure that the stakeholders fully understand the decisions to be made and they are kept well informed and the overall their needs to the projects are met. This is why the stakeholders must be identified early on in the project in order to ensure that the project requirements are fully specified.

A project is successful when it meets project objectives and when it meets or exceeds the expectations of the stakeholders.

The stakeholders may include:

• The Project Manager
• The Sponsor (Person/Group funding the project)
• The Customer(s)
• Department Heads or Managers
• Project Team
• Executive Team
• Project Management Office (PMO)
• Others (It's not the complete list. Stakeholders can expand to include vendors, government agencies and others who can provide influence within the project)

One of the challenges of managing stakeholder expectations is dealing with conflicting interests. As the project stakeholders are critical to success of the project it is very important to identify the stakeholders as early as possible within a project in order to make sure everyone is in agreement with project requirements

Definition of Project Management

Project Management (Definition as per PMBOK): The application of Knowledge, Skills, Tools and Techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.
In other words it involves planning, organising, monitoring and controlling the project activities in order to accomplish the project requirements. Therefore the project manager has being responsible for accomplishing the project objectives. The project manager is like the conductor of an orchestra, making sure that each section plays its part at the right time, in the right way and also in sync of the whole.

Project Management is far more than just managing a project schedule as many people tend to think that project manager do, in actuality the project schedule is just one among many things involved in project management process. Managing a project involves:

There are 5 process groups in Project Management:

1. Identifying the requirements and establishing clear objectives
2. Managing competing priorities
3. Meeting Stakeholder expectation

The first point is self explanatory. Without identifying the requirements and establishing clear objectives, the project is likely to fail. The second managing competing priorities refer to different aspects of project management that were tend to compete with one another such as time, cost, scope and quality. You may be asked to increase your scope which would bring your project over budget or delayed. These aspects sacrifices result of the other. This is something called the Triple Constraint

The Triple Constraint includes scope, time and cost, when one of these three is effected the others also be effected. That's the reason planning is very important ingredient project management. The stakeholders are those who have a vested interest within the project and the project manager has responsibility to the stakeholders and to ensuring that their expectations has been met.

Progressive Elaboration

Progressive Elaboration: The concept of Progressive Elaboration is a third characteristic of a project after "temporary" and "unique product, service or result". What it means is, the project starts with a broad scope description and we see further elaboration as the project moves forward. The project team will be levied on the project scope as they receive the full set of deliverables and objectives to be accomplished.

At the start of the project there will be the broadly defined scope. Think of this as a funnel, as we move further down or further into the project as the funnel gets smaller. Just as the scope is more tightly developed until we have complete understanding of the work to be done. We can see that visually in the above figure, as the project progresses we can see the definition of the scope becomes focused. We have started with a broad set of deliverables, then additional details was added, and finally we drill down the result in the final scope of the project

Progressive elaboration is something that is planned and done with a purpose. There should be a reason to project to proceed in this manner else we will encounter something called Scope Creep.
The progressive elaboration is not considered to be Scope Creep as it is done with coordinated and planned intent.

Scope Creep means the additional scope is added to the project after the project's objectives has been defined. Typically it affects the project's cost, resources and time. This is one of the top reasons that the projects frequently are over budgeted, they missed the deadlines or they failed.

Examples of Progressive Elaboration:
Projects where research plays important role in determining the project scope

Project Vs Operational Work

Project: A temporary endeavor undertaken to create a product, service or a result. (PMBOK Definition)

Temporary: The temporary nature of the project can be by

1. Reaching a project's objective
2. Discovering that objective cannot be reached
3. The project is terminated

Unique product, service or result: By saying the project must have a specific end, does not mean that the product or service does. The PMBOK guide specifies that

1. A product be quantifiable and either an end item in itself, or part of something bigger
2. The project result in the capablility of performing a service
3. There is a result

Example of Project: Development of software for a firm which can automate their sales activity.

Project should be temporary, It should be unique and It should have specific end.

Operational Work: The work that is ongoing, repetitive , meant to sustain the business.

Example of Operational Work: Marketing activity of a firm

Shared Characteristics:

Project	Operational Work
Performed by People
Constrained by limited Resources
Planned, executed and controlled.

Opposing Characteristics:

Project	Operational Work
Temporary	Ongoing
Unique	Repetitive
Ends	Sustains