Surveys show that a major reason for project failure is the lack of benefits management. Even when projects are delivered on time and on budget, they fail to create the expected benefits. Benefits management is not a knowledge area covered by project management, but it is the key domain for programme management.
Five differences between project and programme management are explored, and these explanations can be used to promote the idea of separating programme and project management within an organisation. Very often, organisations do not understand the differences and so put burdens on a project and a project manager which are not achievable. While some local heroes still manage to wear both hats and deliver successfully, this is not a sustainable model for large organisations and for all organisations to achieve higher levels of project management maturity.
The five differences are:
An example is given of how the author morphed from being a project manager to a programme manager. Not every project manager has the personal disposition for this transformation. In fact, most programme managers have not pursued a project management career before.
Keywords: Gap, Lions, Elephants, Education, Standards, Capabilities, Benefits, Projects, Programs
Lions are the 'king of the animals' and quick killers. They are living in families called prides and live for about 12 years in the wild. Lions hunt in teams that are mostly led by females for prey. They also eat dead meat if they are not successful in their hunts (more than 50% of all cases). Their hunts are limited to short bursts of sprints. Otherwise, they are stalking for prey. Humans respect and fear lions; there are man-eaters, and the Romans used lions in their arenas to kill Christians and criminals in a cruel but efficient way. Despite this image of might and power, Lions have not been trained to be used for warfare.
In a way, project managers could be characterised as lions: they work in teams, are efficient, and can achieve results in the short term, but are not always successful. The best are well-respected. They usually are not consulted when it comes to strategy implementation.
Elephants are respected and useful for strategic initiatives. They were heavily used in warfare by Indian, Persian and Roman armies, as well as by the famous Hannibal from Carthage. Elephants are plant eaters and like to live close to water. They can live for 70 years. Elephants are characterised by living in large families, having good long-term memories and caring for each other. Occasionally, Elephants attack and kill humans, but in general, they are regarded as friendly and peaceful animals.
Like programme managers, elephants have been used for strategy implementation; they are respected, work in teams, exhibit a longer timeframe in terms of age and social life, and are effective.
Like lions and elephants, Project and Programme Managers are not just flavours of the same species. While we agree that lions and elephants are indeed different animals, we still see the perception that project managers and programme managers are of the same species, just with slight differences in experience and skills. Some say if you push project managers enough, they will transform into programme managers, and the organisation will receive the benefits it longs for. This is not true in general, as we will see in the following paragraphs.
Fig. 1. Though Lions and Elephants are both attacking animals, they have different capabilities and usage scenarios, similar to project and programme managers
Project and programme success rates are (still) not satisfactory. PMI's Pulse of the Profession Survey 20141 suggests 44% of strategic initiatives are unsuccessful, and more than 10% of project budgets are wasted. Other studies support these dimensions of failure, and this has been true for the past decades. PMI's Survey further states the current main reasons for the shortfalls:
These reasons are not typical areas where project managers would be involved significantly or even considered to be helpful. They are rather related to the organisational development and strategy and are most often handled by an executive and middle management and, where established, programme managers.
What kind of skills and experience would a person need to be able to manage strategic initiatives successfully? Looking at PMI's Standard for Programme Management (SPM), Strategy Alignment is one of 5 domains of Programme Management knowledge, the others are Benefits Management, Governance, Stakeholder Engagement and Programme Life Cycle Management2. The programme manager role covering these knowledge domains seems to be more suitable for handling strategy alignment, organisational agility, and strategy execution than the role of a project manager.
Critical success factors are not under the control of project managers. Corporate Executive Board's (CEB) 2009 Study 'Project Managing Business Outcome'3 looks at projects which are at least 90% successful in the traditional terms of budget and schedule. It states that of these projects, only 53% are considered to be successful by business, measured by
Even when project managers deliver their projects on time and within budget, this is apparently not sufficient to achieve business expectations and benefits.
The definition of success is different for projects and programmes. PMI's PMBoK Guide describes project success as being measured by product and project quality, timeliness, budget compliance, and customer satisfaction. Project success should refer to the last baselines approved by the authorised stakeholders4.
Programmes, in contrast, are considered successful by the degree to which the programme satisfies the needs and benefits for which it was undertaken, looking at the organisation and the business5.
As a consequence, according to the standards, the project manager is not in charge of benefits delivery. He is merely in charge of creating predefined deliverables.
Fig. 2. Deliverables are not always delivering Benefits
Project management education and training focus on the structures and contents of standards. The magic triangle of scope, cost, and time is at the core of training because many important tools and techniques that are taught deal with these areas, such as scheduling, cost estimating, change management, monitoring work, and dealing with deviations. Since project managers also deal with teams and stakeholders and might work in a matrix organisation, interpersonal skills are considered mandatory, e.g. as they are described in PMI's PMBoK Guide appendix X36. Lastly, organisational knowledge and technical skills about the project's product are considered important for project managers.
If project managers were to be enabled to deliver programmes, they should be required to obtain skills in organisational strategy implementation (e.g. how to select a portfolio), benefits management (e.g. how to write a business case) and C-Suite communication. It is rare to see project managers applying for training in these areas.
Education for Programme Managers, on the other hand, is often related to executive education. In fact, many programme managers would have pursued a management career and related education rather than climbing the project management ladder. Programme management education often focuses on leadership development, which is also a topic of executive development. Besides that, the training involves understanding and developing strategies, writing business cases, tracking business benefits and influencing the expectations of executive management. These topics are not included in the core curriculum of most project manager courses.
Standards and methodologies for Project Management focus on the traditional magic triangle. Projects are meant to create deliverables based on a predefined scope, which is defined by the project team from stakeholder requirements. Standards and education of project managers shall enable them to deliver the scope on time and on budget. If the delivered scope is really contributing to intended benefits, creating value is not ensured by this. Benefits are rarely mentioned in the project management standards and textbooks. There has been a tendency in project management literature in the last few years, though, to extend the project management scope by also looking at strategy and benefits. Still, if it's in the textbooks, and even if it's taught in project management classes, are the characteristics of successful project and programme managers similar?
Standards for Programme Management like PMI's Standard for Programme Management7 introduce as key areas of business benefits (from identifying and selecting through a business case to transitioning and sustaining in business operations), enhanced stakeholder engagement. MSP addresses this by saying, "The rigour with which an MSP programme addresses the management of benefits is one of the distinguishing features between programmes and projects"8.
The capabilities of a successful programme manager are significantly different to those of a good project manager. This was a major insight in a work presented by Sergio Pellegrinelli in 2003 at the PMI EMEA Congress9. An analysis was undertaken to understand the capabilities of successful project and programme managers (and furthermore, CEOs and managers of project managers). To quote some of the differences that were derived from surveys:
From this list, it becomes clear that the capabilities and the way to look at the world are quite different for project and programme managers.
Fulfilling both roles by one person can be challenging in itself, on top of the challenges of the programme and project. There may be heroes who can do that successfully, but it certainly does not match an organisation's career and professional setup. Similar to asking the subject matter expert to also take the role of a project manager, it is not a sustainable idea to combine specialised roles like project and programme manager.
Looking at the iron triangles for both project and programme management, there is another gap between the professional roles.
For years, the project management's triangle has been scope/quality, cost, and time, and balancing these project attributes means being efficient. The project manager is looking into the project to plan and control these attributes and finally deliver the scope. Any outside 'disturbance' to this balance is not appreciated, but happens anyhow.
The programme management's triangle has not yet been defined in general. According to the PMI's Programme Management Standard, Strategy/Benefits, Stakeholder and Governance can be seen as the areas to be balanced by the Programme Manager. Interestingly, to balance these, the programme manager has to look outside the programme; he has to understand stakeholders and business strategy, create the appropriate governance (both for the programme and its projects) and achieve the benefits expected. This outside look could be described as effectivity, having an effect on the outside world. While focusing on the outside view, the programme manager needs to be supported by other management layers within the programme to look inside to make sure results are created efficiently. This is the main role of project managers and a programme management office.
Fig. 3. Magic Triangles look different for Project and Programme Managers
I made my own transition from project to programme manager in 2002, after being a project manager for 15 years. I was asked to review a challenged SAP rollout 'project'. I never encountered SAP before, and the industry and company culture were new to me, so my subject matter expertise was zero.
Nevertheless, I managed to understand the situation and could provide a solution proposal to the client. The client acknowledged that I grasped the issues and that my solution was something he could buy into. The solution was to run the SAP rollout as a programme and to establish a Programme Management System (PMS), which I was asked to implement within a few months. After that, I was asked to extend and complete the programme for the next 6 years, utilising the programme management environment created.
Without a programme management standard and much relevant literature available at this point in time, I had to bring my experience as a project manager, common sense, and courage to suggest something totally new. The PMS solution provided solutions to the issues identified: it integrated not only rollout and change projects but also operational functions like data centre hosting and maintenance of the system, as well as aligning all components to the overall programme vision and goals. It also ensured that appropriate information was bundled and consistently presented to the stakeholder groups like the steering committee, business function committee and user communities.
For this, a system of eight' strategic layer functions' was defined and mostly implemented, making sure that strategy alignment, overall architecture, programme communications and other centralised tasks could be executed effectively. The system was:
Fig. 4. Programme Management as being implemented in 2002
Knowing about programme management today, I focus on business strategy and requirements, stakeholders, and governance, which means balancing the programme management triangle. I did not interfere with the sphere of the project managers, but as a part of the PMS, standards, procedures and tools were provided to the projects.
We have seen in the previous sections that:
Hence, it seems to be clear that project and programme management should be treated as two different roles and sets of competencies. The gaps between them are wide, as are the differences between lions and elephants. While it can be worthwhile in a constrained environment to try to extend project management as a discipline, the role of the project manager and an individual's responsibilities with aspects that belong rather in the field of programme management, this certainly is not a sustainable way to build a group of individuals capable of delivering benefits through programmes. It is similar to asking your best engineers to take the role of a project manager, which is now well understood to get rid of a good engineer and get a mediocre project manager at best. Exceptions are rare.
Organisations will see fewer failed programmes and projects because of undelivered benefits if they develop a programme standard and the specific role of a programme manager. Both PMI's SPM and OGC's MSP can be a good start for doing this.
Do not try to force lions to act like elephants.
References:
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