What are the most effective tools and methods for program planning and budgeting?

Before budgeting starts, senior management and the project team will have to agree on a set of program goals, time frame, deliverables, resources for the project. Once it is defined, it is possible to work on the budget. Budgeting has two approaches: top down and bottom up. In the top down approach, senior management will need to define what is the maximum spending allowed to do the project. In the bottom up approach, project team will estimate how much budget is needed to accomplish the project goal.

I have found that a lot of times it is best to keep it straight forward and simple. Don’t let a tool slow you down and make things confusing. Simple straight forward works.

A program logic model should be simple and straightforward as previously commented on but it needs to evolve with the project/program. Depending on whether the program or project was a competitive proposal or an internal project there was a planning/proposal phase. Once an award is made or management approval occurs the PLM needs to be revisited and revised to incorporate changes that occurred during negotiations/management review process. If the PLM is intended to be used for the life of the program/project it should be reviewed and updated anytime significant changes in requirements, costs or scheduling occur.

Allocate monies to the value streams that are important to you. Prioritize the work that goes into the pipeline. It does not matter how much you spend on each product, as the money gets spent based on your priority.

This covers a range of topics related to system expectations, practices and program, project activities and outcomes. This includes an assessment of key program operations, service elements, evaluation elements, materials documenting these and guiding policies or practices for the work. It covers both materials (evaluation and program/project) as well as participant files.

To ensure that your program review and improvement processes are as successful as possible, effective planning and program governance must be implemented. This should involve overseeing all portfolios associated with the program, such as project health, budgets, schedules, and repositories for change management and moonshot ideas, as well as a schedule for making improvements and/or changes. For instance, changes can only be made to the program once stakeholders and sponsors have been consulted and communicated via the quarterly newsletter. Useful tools for tracking program-level changes include Asana, Monday and Smartsheet.