In my international career spanning over two decades, I have seen many people finding it difficult to adjust to the world of program management. They typically graduate from project management discipline, and even good project managers find it hard to appreciate the differences between project and program management. They learn the tricks of the trade by trial and error. They are unable to grasp the importance and complexity of Business Change Management and that causes programs to fail in spite of them delivering the successful capability.
The plethora of terms like End-to-End Delivery Management, Business Change Management, Program Management, and Customer Delivery management without clear role definitions does not help either. I have seen stakeholders exploiting the gaps in a clear understanding of roles and responsibilities to further their interests. With long program durations, many people did not ever get a chance to work on all aspects of program management i.e. from initiation to benefits transition and sustainment. It meant they could not experience the transformation journey from current state to beneficial future state and thus may not be able to visualize the big program picture.
PMI’s Program Management Professional (PgMP) certification based on the ‘The Standard for Program Management’ is designed to address just this gap.
It provides a structured methodology and guidelines for program managers to apply the program management framework to any program regardless of the industry or domain in which the program is being undertaken. At the same time, it provides enough leeway for program managers to tailor or adapt the standard principles and methodology to suit the peculiarities of the specific program or situation. I am sure that the organization and program team will enhance the chances of successfully delivering the program outcomes and benefits by consistently applying this standard to the programs. This standard is certainly a great asset to have as a part of Organisational Project Management (OPM) to enhance an organization’s strategic execution capability!
Being associated with project and program management for a significant part of my professional career, I am glad that I am able to give back to the profession by creating trained program management professionals ready to make real-world programs successful!
