What you need to kick off
The head of each business area sets their strategy, which should support the overall corporate strategy. This strategy should take the form of a detailed document, made up of individual sections describing the plans, goals, and targets for their line of business. Even though this strategy document is developed at a high level, it provides valuable information for the Program and the Program Manager. This strategy document should identify where they are today, where they want to be and how they plan on reaching their business objectives.

The "product" that your program supports should be included as part of this document. If it is not, then the program probably will not have the support it needs to be successful and will carry a high risk of failure. This is a bold statement. However, a Program Manager knows that to be successful, business support is a necessary requirement for any mission critical endeavor.

The business product MUST have a detailed strategy document that will include how the line of business will achieve its goals and targets. The product business plan will take the business strategy a level deeper by describing the goals, targets, and plans. For a better understanding, review this sample Business Plan Table of Contents which illustrates the kind of information that should be provided in your product business plan.

What you need to do
The first thing a Program Manager must do is allocate responsibility to different business organizations identified in the business product plan, as it relates to the business product. Then each area must define their objectives as it affects the business product. If they are involved in multiple options, each initiative must separately define the goals, targets, and plans. The Program Manager and Review Board, if present, must review and validate these objectives for accuracy and achievability. These objectives must also be compared with other plans for the business product to identify any potential conflicts in targets, goals, and dependencies. When multiple options are pursued simultaneously, decision points must be determined as to when to alert the executive management, if and when an option should be halted, or temporarily put on hold.

Key Assets - What you need to manage effectively
A successful Program Manager must be highly skilled in the coordination of people, work products and business objectives. Below are three key assets a Program Manager needs to be successful.

An electronic communication vehicle. You need to be communicating and storing decisions throughout the product's development. These communications need to be reviewed and commented on regularly with a central point where anyone who needs to, can go and review previous communications. This vehicle can be in the form of Lotus Notes database, a requirements management tool, or a forum on an Intra- or Internet. Regardless of the format, this must be something that everyone can access, including external business partnerships. (We will elaborate on this topic when we discuss virtual collaborative communication in a future tip).

A high-powered scheduler who will manage the master plan, which consists of individual plans produced by the managers of specific work products. This Master Plan may be a plan -> within a plan -> within a plan -> within a plan. Be sure to have a mechanism that will easily pull together all of these plans, including those from other schedulers. You do not want to waste valuable time dealing with the mechanics of different scheduling tools.

People. The most important asset to any program is the people who participate. No Program Manager, no matter how senior or experienced, can manage a program alone. You need qualified staff members who will help research, gather, validate, coordinate, produce, and distribute information of varying types. These valued personnel understand what needs to be produced for the product (e.g.: product descriptions, advertisements, architectural drawings) as well as for the program (e.g.: status reports, presentations, announcements). Each of the business units and Project Managers involved in the program require similar staff to support them.

SBDi has experienced Program Managers on staff to help you with your large-scale mission-critical products. We can assist your organization in developing your Program's Business Plan.

Pat Ferdinandi