Program Management for Improved Business Results

Chapter 10. Strategic Program Management Tools

The topic of this chapter is tools to support the strategic aspects of program management. To be clear, it is not the program manager who develops and owns the strategic tools. The strategic tools are owned by senior managers who use them to supervise and manage programs at the strategic level. Why, then, do we bother to discuss these tools in the section of the book dealing with management of a single program, a level that is not the purview of senior management but of program managers? The significance of these tools is that program managers need to comprehend the information obtained from the tools to communicate with senior managers about their programs from a strategic perspective.

The conventional wisdom holds that tools are enabling devices to reach an objective or, more specifically, a deliverable. Like any other tool, strategic program management tools include procedures and techniques by which a deliverable is produced. Their core—either of a qualitative or quantitative nature—is in their systematic procedure.

We explain the following strategic program management tools in this chapter:

• business case

• alignment matrix

• portfolio maps

• road map

• complexity assessment

The purpose of this chapter is to help practicing and prospective program managers achieve the following objectives:

• Learn how major strategic program management tools are developed and utilized to increase program efficiency and effectiveness.

• Be able to describe how strategic ...