Program &
Project Management are closely related disciplines but serve different purposes
for an organization. According to the Project Management Institute®, projects
are unique, temporary endeavors and progressively elaborated as they are better
understood whereas a program is an ongoing or continuous effort on a collection
of related projects that are managed in a coordinated fashion to bring
strategic benefit to the organization while continuously improving the project
management processes. Programs define a set of standard processes, procedures
and controls across managed projects and may be managed through a Program
Management Office (PMO) or a Program Office (PO). We help organizations with
managing complex projects and programs, project and program assessment and
recovery, establishing PMO or PO and project management best practices.
Programs are aligned with an organization’s overall mission, vision, objectives and values. Programs continue to exist even when contained projects end. On the other end, projects are temporary endeavors to deliver a specific outcome under various constraints such as budget and end date. Projects, however, can be standalone and managed outside of a program. Programs concerns with managed projects interdependencies, sequencing and various constraints imposed by the organization. It is a preferred practice to manage programs through Program Office (PO) or Program Management Office (PMO) depending upon the size of the program, organization and other critical success factors. Research shows that PO or PMO provide tangible benefits as an essential integrator of people, processes and tools that manage and influence project performance. According to Gartner, “through 2008, three out of four successful $500K+ projects will be planned with project support… while three out of four failed projects will not”. Program Office or Program Management Office provides standard processes, controls, reporting mechanisms as well as it can provide guidance, mentoring, coordination support and oversight to the project managers. Some of the key benefits of mature program and project management are cost savings, on-time delivery, increased customer satisfaction, reduction in rework, coordinated resources, actively managed risks, goals and objectives are known, aligned and agreed upon by all stakeholders. Lack of sound project management leads to missed deadlines, exceeded budgets, poor communications, inability to meet project requirements, to name a few. In this practice, we provide several key services: Project management
Contact us if you like to get more information regarding our project and program management consulting practice. |