Programme Perspective

Historically, the discipline of Project Management has focused almost exclusively on individual projects that are independent, aside from resource constraints, from other projects. Moreover, the existence of well-understood goals prior to the start of the Project Delivery phase is virtually a defining characteristic of successful Front-End Development. For certain industries or undertakings, this viewpoint is justified; for others, it is clearly not and leads to short-sighted behavior and poor strategic business decisions. In the PMC, we expand the traditional concepts of Project Management to address the related but distinct challenges of Programme Management and adopt the following definition:

Programme– A set of related projects and organizational changes put in place to achieve a strategic goal and to deliver a series of benefits that the organization expects.

The distinction is not merely academic, but materially changes both the nature of the challenges and the managerial tools required to drive the programme to a successful conclusion.