Program Management of Technology Endeavours

Lateral Thinking in Large Scale Government Program Management

Ali Al Khouri

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781137509512
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137509536
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business Strategy
• Index: Business

When we look at a program or a project, to identify its size in terms of 'large', it would be advisable to consider a few factors that determine the size i.e., effort, uncertainty and complexity involved in delivering the outcome. This book is intended to provide the required lateral thinking in this field of management excellence.

1

Introduction

Projects and programs are not alien concepts; nor are the management issues related to these fields of practice. Case studies abound – both successes and failures – each of which comes across as unique, with its own contextual justifications. Many a guide has been developed and many a standard proposed. It comes across as a paradox of sorts that while we define a project as a unique set of activities for achieving a unique goal, we tend to straitjacket the processes for management. This book attempts to view these processes and practices from an insider’s perspective. It seeks to provide an insight into how the best practices have been garnered into forming a replicable model that has not only facilitated the implementation of a large national government program with unprecedented success but also helped in building a huge knowledge repository.

1.1 Introduction to the book

I envisage that my prospective readers will have been involved in some project/program playing a specific role as part of their professional experience. As program and project management professionals or stakeholders they will have realised that the orchestration of a project’s success depends on effectively applying various processes, practices, controls, and commitment from every individual involved in the project. A project’s success cannot be steered unless each process, such as planning, executing, or controlling, is implemented properly. Government projects and programs demand serious commitment from all the people involved, supported by the right program and project management methodologies, along with a set of selected processes and practices for effective outcomes.

There is no magic formula or a silver bullet approach that can guarantee success of a program or project; however, the factors identified in this book and the methods proposed along with effective application of human capital can potentially increase the chances of success.

The world economy of the industrial era, characterised by capital accumulation, has been transformed into an information age economy, where deregulation and the liberalisation policies implemented by governments and international organisations allow capital to flow freely across borders.

In previous decades, the wealth of nations was determined by how efficiently and effectively they organised their industries and businesses to produce goods in the competing markets of the world economy. Now we live in an information age, and their wealth depends on how well they organise and manage the flows of information and knowledge in the global marketplace (Grant, 1991; Drucker, 1988; DTI, 2003; Stiglitz, 1999).

Information and the technology that drives it provide a competitive advantage for organisations that can harness it and respond rapidly to the complex and ever-changing markets of the 21st century (Bhatt and Grover, 2005; Olugbode et al., 2007).

Coming to project management literature, there are a lot of technical handbooks, which concentrate on project management processes on how to run successful projects in different fields (Suikki et al., 2006). The literature includes a wide variety of approaches including the management of information systems development. Longworth (1985) identifies over 300 information systems methodologies. Most come originally from practice (not from the academic community) and have been refined and blended in practice.

In addition, there is literature, which covers the ‘theory’ of project management, its fundamentals, processes, methods, tools, practical cases, and ideas of success. However, it was noted that the examples in the existing literature are rarely of the size and complexity of implementing large government programs and projects, in particular for technology endeavours; proceeding without understanding and managing the inherent risk in such projects or programs will obviously lead to higher probabilities of failure.

It is important to understand what Methodology and Standard stand for at this point. Methodology can be referred to as ‘A collection of methods, processes and practices that are repeated over and over again’. This means that the same practices are followed on almost every project. A Standard is basically ‘A collection of knowledge areas which are considered good practices within the industry’. A methodology is normally a well-designed framework or documented procedure while a standard is the best practice that has been tested and implemented within the industry. A standard can never ever be a methodology but a methodology can be adopted from a standard.

This book first details globally accepted methodologies, standards, and practices with some recent studies on the large project and program failures along with some key factors that could have led to such results. Then the field of project and program management is briefly explored to highlight the need for a methodological approach towards managing large projects and programs in general, and government projects more specifically within the technology domain. The processes followed, underlying principles, and an overview of the proposed standards are provided subsequently. A synopsis on the implementation of a new methodology in UAE and its value in the national ID program are outlined in the following chapters.

1.2 Objective

The primary objective of this publication is to bring awareness to effectively manage large government programs and projects, especially for the UAE Government by:

•understanding the factors influencing the successful implementation of large technology programs and projects,

•getting exposure to the new methodology PROMOTE proposed for government programs and projects along with understanding its usage in the National ID Program,

•assessing the current available methodologies for managing such projects / programs.

This book intends to provide guidance for the key stakeholders like directors, senior management teams, program sponsors, program managers and project managers, engineers, etc., who want to improve the performance of their programs and projects in order to deliver them successfully. Importantly, it offers detailed insights into large government program management for researchers providing hereto unavailable literature in this domain. The new methodology detailed in the book brings to the fore aspects of program management that are either ignored or taken as granted. The book serves to provide insights on the practical aspects of program management for academia and research scholarship.

1.3 What are portfolios, programs, and projects?

It is important to get a quick understanding of the terms Project, Program, and Portfolio before moving to other chapters as they are widely used in this book.

A Project is a temporary endeavour of work that is carried out to deliver a product, service or result, which has a definite start date and end date; i.e. a time box. Project Management is about ensuring a project’s integrity and making efforts (panned, inspective, and adaptive) to balance the scope of work, cost, and time while ensuring the planned quality.

Although many projects may be similar, each project is unique. Project differences may surface owing to the following variables:

•Deliverables,

•stakeholders’ influence,

•resources used,

•constraints,

•tailored processes.

Examples of projects include, but are not limited to:

•developing a new product, service, or result;

•managing a change in the structure, process, staffing, or style of an organisation;

•developing or acquiring a new or modified information system (hardware or software);

•conducting a research effort whose outcome will be aptly recorded;

•constructing a building, industrial plant, or infrastructure; and / or

•implementing, improving, or enhancing existing business processes and procedures.

A Program is generally a collection of related Projects and other activities aligned with strategic goals. Program management consists of centralised and co-ordinated activities to achieve the goals.

Essentially, Program Management is the art and discipline of making decisions about investments towards meeting strategic objectives by allocating and balancing resources, assessing performance and managing risks involved.

A Portfolio can contain both programs and projects. Portfolio refers to a collection of projects, programs, sub-portfolios, and operations managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives.

Portfolio Management is the centralised orchestration of one or more portfolios, and it includes identifying, prioritising, authorising, managing, and controlling projects, programs, and other related work in an endeavour to obtain specific strategic business objectives of the organisation. Essentially, Portfolio Management is about knowing and using the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats in the choice of debt against equity, growth against safety, and other trade-offs with the aim to maximise returns while actively managing the associated risks.

A Project Portfolio is generally a collection of projects and programs and other work that are grouped together to facilitate the effective management of that work to meet strategic goals. Project portfolio management is generally the centralised management of one or more project portfolios, which includes identifying, prioritising, authorising, directing, and controlling projects, programs, and other work to achieve specific strategic goals.

It is a good practice to conduct opportunity identification and selection, as well as the approval and management of projects, through a project portfolio management system.

1.3.1 Relationships among portfolios, programs, and projects in an organisation

The strategy of an organisation is an action plan to achieve its business goals and objectives. The portfolio is directly connected to the strategic business plan of the organisation.

The strategy determines the portfolio of projects and programs that the organisation is capable of executing. In general, as mentioned above, a portfolio is a set of projects, programs, or combination of both that is managed in a co-ordinated fashion to obtain control and benefits not available from managing them individually.

Portfolio management focuses on making sure that programs and projects are prioritised for resources to serve the organisation’s strategy. In simpler terms, a portfolio manager worries about the success of the whole strategy put forth by the organisation rather than the success of a single project.

Therefore, investment decisions are usually made at the portfolio level. Program management focuses on achieving the benefits that would be aligned with the portfolio and hence with the strategic objectives of the organisation. Therefore, a portfolio is a part of the interface between the programs and strategic business objectives of the organisation for which the programs are run.

Individual projects that are either within or outside of a program are still considered part of a portfolio. Although the projects or programs within the portfolio may not necessarily be interdependent or directly related, they are linked to the organisation’s strategic plan by means of the organisatio...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• 1  Introduction
• 2  Project Management Philosophy
• 3  Program Management Philosophy and the Importance of a PgMO
• 4  Overview of Various Project and Program Management Standards
• 5  Program and Project Management of Technology Endeavours
• 6  PROMOTE Processes
• 7  Program Reporting and Controls
• 8  PROMOTE Case Study
• 9  Conclusion
• References
• Index