The 5 Immutable Principles of Program (or Project) Success

1. What Does Done Look Like in Units of Measure Meaningful to the Decision Makers?

Done is a set of Capabilities provided by the Program to stakeholders. These capabilities describe the system's behavior in terms of "operational concepts." Capabilities answer the question: How does the system achieve beneficial outcomes for the owners?

Capability planning means planning under uncertainty to provide capabilities suitable for the wide range of needs for the business or mission while working within an economic framework that requires choices to be made. The technical and operational requirements are traceable from the Measures of Effectiveness (MoE) to each deliverable by identifying capabilities. Capabilities state why we want this system. Capability planning means planning under uncertainty to provide capabilities suitable for the wide range of needs for the business or mission while working within an economic framework that requires choices to be made. The technical and operational requirements are traceable from the Measures of Effectiveness (MoE) to each deliverable by identifying capabilities. Capabilities state why we want this system.

2. What is the Path to Reach To Done at the Planned Time for the Planned Cost?

Technical and operational requirements must be developed for each desired capability. Each requirement must be testable and traceable to the desired capability. Requirements are elicited through a fact-finding and classification process. The evaluation and rationalization of the requirements answer the question, "Why do I need this?" regarding operational benefits.

With these requirements, we must determine the Plan for arriving at "done." The Plan is the Strategy for completing the Program. It describes the "path" to the end and what "done" looks like—not only at the end but also along the way. The Plan also describes the increasing maturity of the Program's deliverables.

The units of measure for the maturity and when a specific value for this unit of measure will be present. This means the Plan has a sequence of increasing maturity.

The Plan is not a Schedule, which is time-based. Instead, it is sequence-based, relationship-based, and maturity-based for the deliverable. TScheduleule tells us "when" this maturity will appear.

3. Do We Have Enough Resources, Time, and Money to Get Done As Planned?

Once we know what Done looks like in units of measure meaningful to the decision makers and our Plan and Schedule to reach DONE in the planned time, with the planned budget, we must determine if we have enough of everything we need to get Done.

This includes funding, adequately trained and qualified staff, facilities, a reliable supply chain for materials needed to implement the Program, and other consumables.

4. What Impediments Will We Encounter Along The Way To Done?

All risks to program success come from uncertainty ? Reducible (Epistemic) and Irreducible (Aleatory). Risk handling strategies are needed to continually assess what will go wrong in the Program, determine which risks are most important, and implement handling strategies to prevent or correct the source of the risk. Risk Management is not Issue Management. Risks may happen in the future with some probability of occurrence or from an underlying stochastic process. Risk management continually assesses what can go wrong in the project, determines which risks are most important, and implements strategies to handle these risks. Risk Management is not Issue Management. Risks may happen in the future with some probability of occurrence. Risks, when they occur, have some undesirable impact on the project. This impact has a range of possibilities as well. When they do happen, risks have some unwanted effects on the Program. This impact has a range of options. Risk handling is required for reducible uncertainties, and margin (Cost, Schedule, or Technical) for irreducible uncertainties.

5. How Can We Tell We Are Making Progress to Plan?

With our PlaScheduleule, resources, and a clear and concise description of DONE in units of measure meaningful to the decision makers. How will we tell if we're making progress toward DONE? Measures of Effectiveness and Performance are used to assess progress in planning. Do we know how much progress we will make at some point in the future? The passage of time and money consumption is never a measure of progress to plan.