Page 152 - Global Project Management Handbook

7-2 STATE OF THE ART OF GLOBAL PROJECT MANAGEMENT

investment portfolio score card, the business case analysis, the project assignment, the proj-
ect portfolio database, the project portfolio score card, and the network-of-projects graph.

THE PROGRAM: A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT

A program is a temporary organization to fulfill a unique business process of large scope.
It is of great strategic importance for the company performing the program, and it is lim-
ited in time. The projects that are part of the program serve to realize common program
objectives (Fig. 7.1).
Objectives of a program can be the performance of a contract (contracting program),
the establishment of a new infrastructure (a construction program or an IT program), or
the development of a new organization (reorganization program). The yearly investment
program or the strategic priorities of a company are not programs in an organizational
sense. The term program is used every day in different ways. The organizational meaning
of the word must still make its mark.
Programs are a new possibility for the organizational differentiation of the project-
oriented company. In practice, the term project is often used for temporary organizations
that should be managed as programs. In order to communicate the difference in scope and
complexity of such organizations, some companies refer to these as “total projects” or
“large projects.” In doing so, however, the following organizational potentials are lost,
which result from the differentiation between projects and programs:

● Differentiation between the program owner team and the owner teams of the projects of
the program
● Use of different project owner teams for different projects in the program
● Promotion of the autonomy of the individual projects in a program, such as the devel-
opment of a project-specific culture and the design of project-specific environment
relationships
● Substitution of the hierarchical organizational structure of a complex project with
several subprojects (Fig. 7.2) with a flat program organization (Fig. 7.3)

Characteristic of Scale
business process
Frequency Continuous Unique Unique
Short-term – Medium-term –
Duration Short-term
medium-term long-term
Importance Low Medium – high High
Scope Small Medium – large Large
Resource demand Low Medium High
Cost Low-medium Medium – high High
Organizations involved Few Several – many Many

Permanent
Organizational form organization or Project Programme
working group
FIGURE 7.1 Characteristics of business processes that are organized as programs.