Program management should ideally take a holistic view of the organization’s strategy and its relation to various tracks. With the involvement of stakeholders, it is important to synergize the various teams and manage their interdependencies. While at it, the program manager should ensure that communication is at the very center as it plays a very critical role in determining success of the program.

The following are some best practices that drive the successful implementation of a program.

Planning

Planning involves coming up with program goals obtained from converting strategic goals. At this level, the scope needs to be well defined and synchronized with strategic objectives. The program goals should be further broken down to multiple manageable tracks to ensure effective management and focus. The plan ought to be revisited from time to time for the purpose of updating and must be observed to ensure predictability in outcomes.

Some of the ways to ensure effective planning include creating a program charter which will help provide direction, scope and the program objectives. In addition, reviewing organization policies and procedures will ensure that practices bring implemented do not conflict with those of the organization.

Risk Management

Risk management is a crucial aspect of program management. To achieve the desired output, strong risk management activities ought to be put in place to increase the probability of success for the program. All risk needs to be identified, analyzed and mitigated in the early stages to prevent surprises in the course of execution.

For effective risk management, the program manager will be required to enable risk scoring framework to effectively measure risk exposure with respect to its probability, impact, and cost of mitigation. Also, identifying risk triggers will help the organization adopt proactive mitigation measures.

Stakeholder Management

Large and complex programs involve many stakeholders who can impact the program positively or negatively. It is therefore important to understand and address stakeholder needs and manage their expectation to ensure a successful program. In order to get full stakeholder support, the program manager must ensure the involvement of stakeholders in key decision making while ensuring they are adequately informed on program affairs through effective communication.

The program manager can start by creating a stakeholder management plan by identifying stakeholders’ importance, their roles, and their influence on the program. The program manager should also identify and understand the conflict of interest amongst key stakeholders and prepare in advance to deal with potential risks.

Performance Management

The success of a program heavily depends on its close alignment in meeting business objectives. To ensure alignment, program governance models should be used, while at the same time constantly measuring program performance against its needed objectives. Variances can be handled by the effective implementation of strategies to reduce negative deviances.

Identifying critical success factors for the program and identifying metrics of measurement is one way of maintaining positive progress in the implementation of the program. The other way is converting program strategy to manageable and defined goals or milestones and Identifying analytical metrics and tools to measure the same.

Organization Change Management

An Organization’s readiness for change need to be confirmed for the successful implementation of a program. Large initiatives tend to have greater impact on the organizations hence creating the need for change management which entails managing stakeholder emotions and expectations during the transition. The change process can be streamlined by enabling and creating change agents who align all stakeholders towards the program’s vision.

Change is uncomfortable, therefore requiring delicate management. Keeping all the impacted users informed about the changes always helps towards greater acceptability about the change. One pitfall to avoid is the tendency to assume the organization change needs to be taken up during later phases of the program. On the contrary, it should be considered from ideation phase and handled as an ongoing process.

Communication Management and Governance

Effective communication is crucial in managing interfaces between stakeholders, processes and organizations. On the other hand, governance structures are communication enablers and drive decision making while ensuring that the very decisions are taken in the interest of the larger program objective.

A key pitfall the program manager should avoid is the tendency to postpone communication meetings especially during a crisis. This is akin to postponing a problem hoping that it will go away. Communication meetings are a must and not optional for programs.

Effective program management, and particularly for large business initiatives, will help keep the focus towards the objective and influence a positive outcome.