Program management of group related projects to achieve impact greater than managing projects individually is very important to better align and coordinate efforts in benefits realization the organizations seek to achieve through project initiation and implementation, since program management is the link between strategy management and project management there is more uncertainties “risks and opportunities” that are not seen at project level, the economy of scale is just one benefit of integration and coordination, while increasing the visibility of the ultimate goals of the program will give program/project teems butter understanding of the relations between projects outcomes to better prioritize resources and activities.
Integrated program management has four main pillars; planning is the first one where the scope is defined and the theory of change is put in practice, planning will set the directions to achieve the goals and the baselines that will be used to measure performances and KBIs, second is analyzing the data, data which generated from the implementation of projects should be processed and converted to information that give meaning, this information is used in the third pillar “ monitor the status” in which trends are identified, progress and risks are monitored and information is communicated and integrated change control is set to take the right decisions to steer the program. The fourth pillar is the IPM, Integrated Project Management systems to help the program manager and teams to cope up with lots of information and processes necessary to manage the program, this system can be manual based but automation is the preferred way to go.
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