Program Management for Improved Business Results

Preface

Program management has been in practice for decades but isolated to a few industries in which it was developed. It wasn't until the 1980s when it migrated to the commercial sector that it was used more broadly to develop products, services, and infrastructure capabilities. Today, program management is widely recognized as a true management discipline, and institutions like the Project Management Institute (PMI) have finally come to recognize its strategic importance and value to companies. This tells us that the project management community has realized that trying to use project management practices to solve problems that are better resolved by program management practices is an exercise in frustration. Program and project management are both critically important for managing the complex development challengs that face companies today. They are related but are distinctively different disciplines. Program management is strategic in nature and focused on business results, while project management is tactical in nature (management of the triple constraints) and focused on execution aspects of generating project deliverables.

While differentiating between program and project management (as well as other processes and disciplines commonly confused with program management) is one aspect of this book, our intention is to provide a holistic view of the program management discipline. The holistic view describes program management as a critical business function (the business level) ...