What is Program Governance?

The process of developing, communicating, implementing, monitoring & assuring the policies, procedures, & org structures and practices associated with a program. Program governance is concerned with controlling the organization's investment.

So, let me give you some concrete examples as opposed to just theory. Program governance ensures the "Program" have:

The Right People

• Business managers whose problems the program is trying to address
• Senior leadership sponsorship & engagement means
• Identification of skills, needs and solutions
• Common roles (e.g. Project Director, Project Manager)
• Co-ordination of PM training and mentorship programs

The Right Projects

• Identification & selection of projects
• Alignment to strategic objectives
• Rank & priority assessment
• Risk management
• Capacity management
• Balanced allocation of resources

The Right Process

• Program management framework
• Co-ordination and facilitating the development and administration of common controls, methodology standards and tools
• Align corporate processes with group/divisional processes
• Regulation & compliance

The Right Tools

• Change & communications management techniques
• Central repository for programs & projects in the corporate portfolio
• Integration of tools to improve project management capability
• Research and communicate on latest global development in thoughts, techniques and tools

The Right Culture

• Sponsorship for initiatives
• Co-ordinate and facilitate enhancing project management capability & culture
• Sharing knowledge and experiences
• Forums for project managers
• Coaching & mentoring
• Performance recognition (awards)

This is how the word "Governance" needs to translated into actionable tasks for execution so that successful outcomes can be achieved.

Outcome Management Vs. Project Management

Outcome Management is a set of methods, processes, tools and techniques for planning, selecting, managing and realizing results of benefits. It addresses: What problem are we trying to solve? So begin with the end in mind..

However, very often it is confused with project management. The table below attempts to point out some differences between the two and hopefully broadens your perspective on outcome management.

Presenting at the upcoming PMI SAC Conference

I am quite excited about the opportunity of speaking at the upcoming PMI conference in Calgary on November 23rd.

Here is the link to the event and my presentation abstract:

http://www.pmisacconference.com/dnn/Program/MondaySessionsandWorkshops/tabid/156/Default.aspx

My topic is:

"Aligning & prioritizing Projects/Initiatives with the corporate strategy using Balanced Scorecards".

Specifically, I will be addressing:

'Doing the right projects or performing projects right! What is more important?’

Every organization has to decide at regular intervals which projects/initiatives they should execute and which ones they can delay. Also, are these projects aligned with the corporate strategy?

More specifically, do you need to answer any of the following questions?

1. What prioritized projects, services and products to concentrate on for the next 3-5 years to achieve maximum business success with resource and budget constraints?

2. How do I balance different stakeholder opinions before I build a roadmap?

3. How do I know that my roadmap/strategy is best aligned with corporate goals and is offering minimum risk for realization?

To answer the questions above, I will present an intelligent approach as well as a software toolset which uses Balanced Scorecards and Mathematical Optimization to rank and select projects for the PMO to balance various stakeholder needs, satisfy resource constraints and align with the corporate strategy.

I have successfully implemented this approach at 2 clients and elements of this work have been published in a paper at the International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE 2006, Shanghai, China).

I will be highly honored if you can make it to the session on Monday, November 23rd from 1-2 PM.

Continuing on Program Management: What is a Program Roadmap?

The Program road map is an information display that visually shows the time phasing of the programs within the portfolio. Most company's development appetites exceed their available human and non-human resources to convurrently develop all products, services or infrastructure solutions. The purpose of the program roadmap is to balance the anticipated market timing of programs under consideration with the available resources of the firm. The road map appropriately reflects what is possible and practical over time. The figure above shows an example of program road map for a software development organization.

The Program road map is a dynamic tool in that it should be updated regularly to reflect the current market and customer environmental conditions, along with the current availability of resources within the firm. It provides information for program managers on the high-level timing expectations by senior managers for their program.

Program Managers must work within the time constraints as specified by senior management in order to plan and utilize the company's resources most efficiently. The road map also becomes a primary communication device between program managers and the functional department managers to whom company's resources normally directly report. In this context, the program road map is primary planning tool during the early stages of the program lifecycle.

What is a portfolio MAP?

Portfolio Maps are information displays that visually show key parameters associated with balancing and managing portfolio of programs. They provide senior managers with the information needed to decide how to distribute their investment in the programs as they pertain to the parameters represented on the program map axes as shown in the diagram above.

These discretionary business investments are based upon their unique standing in the overall portfolio. Each new opportunity is evaluated as to its potential net present value and its associated probability of success.

Program Managers can gain insight into where and how their program fits with the overall portfolio of programs by referencing an organization's portfolio map. Senior management decisions concerning the programs (such as budget and resource allocation) will vary depending upon where a program sits within the portfolio in accordance with its projected return vs. risk. The portfolio map helps put these decisions in context of the overall business strategy for program managers.

Portfolio maps also provide program managers power to influence senior manager's decisions if their program sits in a positive position within the portfolio, such as the "Pearls" quadrant in figure above, where programs are providing high financial value at relatively low risk of failure.

Program Complexity Assessment Tool

As I think through explaining complexity of a program to a client, I came up with an interesting way to assess the complexity of a program. The program complexity tool shown above helps determine how a new program stands on multiple dimensions of complexity.

One of the elegant features of the complexity assessment tool is that it produces a complexity profile which helps to visually depict the overall program complexity. The level of program complexity may have a significant bearing on the level of funding, resource allocation, and approved timing and schedule targets of the delivery effort. Additionally, it contributes to sharpening the focus of attention on the elements of highest complexity in order to reduce risk and ensure that they are appropriately managed.

The value of the above tool is multifold. Senior Managers/Directors can use the tool to help balance a portfolio of programs with an appropriate mix of low-to high complexity programs. It also helps them determine the level of skill and experience needed for the program manager and other key roles on the team to successfully define and execute a program.

Program Managers can utilize the tool to identify key risk areas for a program - high complexity usually means higher risk. In the example above, any program element shown as a complexity level of 3 or 4 should be evaluated in terms of risk to the program. The complexity information contained in the tool can also be utilized by program managers to develop and justify the amount of schedule and budget contingency needed for the program in order to increase the probability of success.

Aligning Projects with Corporate Strategy Presentation

First of all, I would like to apologize to all the readers of this blog for not being able to write something for a little while as I was traveling most of the time. At my PMI presentation last month about "Aligning project with corporate strategy using Balanced Score Cards", I got a lot of very interesting questions from the audience. Some of the questions were around stakeholder consensus, balancing of priorities, changing needs of business and actual implementation of Balanced Scorecards.

These questions definitely stimulate my mind in understanding the concerns other organizations may have in implementing Balanced Score Cards.

I would also like to thank Navneet Bhushan, a great mentor of mine for sharing an interesting WIPRO white paper on "Value of IT", where he has used AHP (Analytical Hierarchy Process) to obtain relative weights on criteria defined in an organization's Balanced Score Card. I will post more on this topic soon.... Here is the link to my presentation:

http://www.pmisac.com/data/uploads/Presentations/2007_10_25_AligningAndPrioritizing.ppt

Which Projects best align with my corporate strategy?

This month I will be presenting at the PMI dinner in the PMI Southern Alberta Chapter Dinner Meeting on October 25-th. It is a great topic and probably of interest to most PMOs and to executives who plan strategy.

The title is: "Aligning & prioritizing projects with the corporate strategy using Balanced ScoreCards".


I personally got very interested in this topic when I was reading the CIO Insight Research Study on Project Management, 2004. The study highlights some very interesting points as mentioned below:

1. 53% of the CIO's say that their project prioritization is politically driven;
2. Only 68% agree that all the necessary business and IT stakeholders are involved in setting IT project priorities;
3. Only 40% of the CIOs say that their companies use a portfolio management approach;

This is when time I started questioning myself on how best can you align your projects with corporate strategy so that the project portfolios can be driven and managed by the needs of the organization..... This was also the time when I actually understood how a true business case is created by using a company's real financial data like working cost of capital and market debt to equity ratio. There was definitely a need to measure projects and question if it was worth doing a project.

At that time, I had recently learned about Balanced Score Cards from an assignment at an Airlines company in Canada and also created some models using Mathematical Optimization under the guidance of my Master's thesis supervisor. The combination of these two led to the creation of the approach which I plan to present.

I was implementing this at Siemens last year and got a great opportunity to understand various types of businesses Siemens is involved in. I wish to share this experience with all of you.

I will post my presentation here on the blog as well and an the Excel Sheet where I built the model.