Defining a Program

A program is a collection of related projects. The projects must be completed in a specific order for the program to be considered complete. Because programs comprise multiple projects, they are larger in scope than a single project. For example, the United States government had a space program that included several projects such as the Challenger Project. A construction company contracts a program to build an industrial technology park with several separate projects.

Unlike projects, programs can have many goals. For example, every launch of a new mission in the NASA space program included several dozen projects in the form of scientific experiments. Except for the fact that they were all aboard the same spacecraft, the experiments were independent of one another and together defined a program.

Establishing Temporary Program Offices

As the size of the project increases, it becomes unwieldy from a management standpoint. A common practice is to establish a temporary program office to manage these large projects. One of my clients uses a team size of 30 as the cutoff point. Whenever the team size is greater than 30, a program office is established. That program office consists of nothing more than the management structure needed for the project. There will be a program director and one or more program administrators as support. The program administrators support the program manager as well as the teams. Even for teams of 30, there will often be a subteam organization put in place to simplify the management of the team. Each subteam will be led by a project manager. When the program is completed, the program office disbands.

Establishing Permanent Program Offices

A permanent program office is established to manage an ongoing and changing portfolio of projects. The portfolio consists of projects that have something in common — for example, all might be funded from the same budget, might be linked to the same goal statement, or might use the same resource pool. The permanent program office, unlike the temporary program office, manages a continuously changing collection of projects.