Effective Project Management

Section B Business Change Programmes

The previous section explained the interweaving of projects and programmes. This section focuses on some of the differences from conventional project management and where business programme management has additional emphasis or needs extra attention.

In the same way that a process or construction project will describe the product to be produced, a programme for business projects will describe a blueprint. The Office of Government Commerce² (predecessor to the Crown Commercial Service) describes a blueprint as a detailed vision for an organization, covering what the organization will look like when all the projects (forming part of the programme) are finished and the business transformation or change is complete.

1 Blueprint

1.1

A blueprint will comprise a background history and description of the business issues and problems to be solved. It will identify what is necessary to support the future business in terms of:

1. Processes.
2. Organization and people.
3. Tools and technology.
4. Costs/performance and service levels.

1.2

It is necessary to continually check the blueprint against the approved strategic objectives of the business. If the corporate strategy changes then the programme may also need to change.

2 Programme Organization

2.1

Whilst there can be a ‘project board’ to act as the client on a project, the client for a business programme will be a sponsoring group with a senior responsible owner (the client project manager) ...