#11: The New Program Management Standard: Principles for Better Programs

This week, Project Management Institute released the fifth version of the Standard for Program Management. Aligning it with the latest PMBoK version, this edition contains eight principles that should lead the work of a program manager.

I love this addition to standards because it becomes extremely easy now to explain the discipline in no time to a stranger. You do not need to start going deep into the artifacts or ways of working. Instead, you can quickly look at the basic principles of work to understand what is going on.

If you do not know anything about the program management, or forget some artifacts or fancy techniques - the only thing you should remember is principles an how to work along with them. Everything else can be added on top as a way to implement principles into practice.

So, what do we have in the The Standard for Program Management (Fifth Edition)?

Stakeholders: Engage stakeholders proactively to ensure that stakeholder expectations, program benefits and organizational strategy are all in harmony with one another, and the expected business value of the program is achieved.

First, you are not about to manage stakeholders, most of them can be way out of your league. But it is your responsibility to reach out to them proactively and bravely put the light on the disagreements and conflicting expectations.

Benefits realization: Focus on generating value for the organization by aligning program outcomes with organizational strategy.

Everything a program produces must have a meaning. If it is not the case, a program manager must go back to the roots of goals and objectives.

Synergy: The continual evaluation and navigation of component complexities and dependencies for optimization across the program, creating more than what was achievable by its individual component parts.

The main definition of a program is the set of projects and activities that should be managed in the coordinated manner to achieve results that are unavailable if components are managed one by one.

Team of Teams: A network of teams that is connected vertically and horizontally forms a structure that allows for a union of shared strategy and empowered execution that enables adaptability and resiliency in the face of complexity and uncertainty.

Change: Manage program change to improve effectiveness and efficiency of benefits realization, delivery, and sustainment during the program life cycle and after its transition to an organization's operations.

Change should be managed proactively, not sitting and waiting for them to come and destroy.

Leadership: Inspire, unite, and lead the program team to align the program vision with the team's efforts and delivery throughout the program life cycle to realize the desired benefits, value, and outcomes.

It is yet another reminder about the necessity of soft skills like empathy, emotional intelligence, coaching and mentoring for a program manager.

Risk: Proactively manage program risks throughout the program life cycle to achieve benefits that are aligned with strategic objectives and build risk response plans across different program components.

Risk management starts at the very moment of a program's birth and ends only when a program is closed.

Governance: Program governance ensures the program is managed appropriately.

Literally, a program manager should increase programs' chances for success by applying frameworks, functions, processes, and tools by which a program is monitored, managed, and supported.

The best way is to embrace principles and build your ways of working on top of them.

Now, you as a program manager are equipped better to make conscious decisions and navigate program complexity.