What's missing with a lot of Programs & Portfolios at Ground Zero - Part 1

Though a majority of Programs have been controlled and monitored with utmost efficiency, there are a list of Projects that lack an eye for detail, out of the box thinking and a commitment from Project/Program influencers

Here I capture some of the VERY evident avenues that need a lot of care taking and support by the Leaders to Program Managers to Project Managers

- Lack of commitment from stakeholders across the organization on a common vision and mission of the Program

- Monitoring and Controlling the Program - There is dire need to educate the organizational teams on the mission and vision of the Program 

- Evaluating and influencing commitment of different teams at regular intervals in an agile approach

- Decision making on time or in due course of Program execution - Change project/Program requirement (at best) or scraping the project sighting project "irrelevance" in the changing market (at worst), is to be done to avoid loss of valuable dollars

- Risk mitigation & contingency - understanding if there is a contingency to avoid the risk of a program failure

- Data driven decision - constantly having an accurate picture of the end product or service and aligning it to the customer's end requirement/product to avoid spending needless dollars

- TRANSPARENT communication - The requirement here is a clear, crisp and accurate communication, on program updates to the stakeholders on the status of the different projects within the Program

- Constant follow-ups, analysis, and evaluation during the execution phase for successful and timely project completion or determine the value/benefits of the Program to the end customer

- Readiness of stakeholders to innovate to avoid failures within the program - lack or delays in identifying changes in the dynamic market, and making real time changes to projects accordingly

- Lack of clear metrics around Organizational Change Management. Questions like measuring the below are still haunting a lot of Program Managers and Stakeholders

• Was the Change Management aligned and agreed up with the stakeholders since it has/will have an impact on the Project/Program?
• Was the impact on Adherence to Project plans, timelines, scope and budget measured before and after the Change?
• Was the Benefit Analysis and ROI measured before and after the Change?
• Is/Was the effectiveness of the change management effort in support of the program measured ?
• Was the value-add of applying Change Management on the program demonstrated to the stakeholders?
• Was the overall outcome and impact of the Organizational change management measured and demonstrated to the stakeholders?
• Is/Was it assessed if the change was occurring, benefiting or impacting at the individual level or organization wide?

- Lack of Collaboration between different verticals/departments/teams within the organization

• This is a very real situation that can happen in an organization of any size and equally serious. As leaders we have to ability to encourage collaboration between departments from the ground level by structuring our team’s interactions with other departments. Issues like wasted unproductive time, poorly managed Program, poorly executed strategy, negative team morale, security risks and inter team conflicts are some of the common things noticed in companies low in collaboration amongst teams/departments

Being informed of the happening, in control of the entire situation and the skills of taking the right decision at the right time, are some of the key factors to over any real and susceptible threat lurking around to impact the Program adversely.

Some of the actions below can help counter this situation

• Explaining the mission and vision of the Program
• speaking the same language and eliminating Jargons and department-specific terms
• Facilitating consistent and frequent communication to teams
• Encouraging constructive feedback and fostering trust between teams
• Holding regular workshops to make sure all the teams involved, understand the focus and purpose of the Program from their team perspective
• Identifying available team members v/s skill mismatch and bridging the gap at the right time, through internal or external trainings
• Having an Audit team identify and/or take care of all Technical, Functional, Process and people related short falls

Let me know your thoughts (or any additional inputs) in the comments below, would love to hear any Out of the Box ideas to help Monitor & Control Programs better

Feel free to reach out to me for quick guidance