Relationship Between Programmes and Projects IQANZ

The Relationship Between Programmes And Projects

by Nicki Carruth | Jun 2, 2022 | Programme Assurance

Much of the business improvement that occurs each day in New Zealand’s public and private sectors is the result of a combination of projects and/or programmes. Many of the workforce have contributed towards projects, but it’s common to not have a full picture of how projects and programmes interrelate, and indeed how the both contribute towards making positive changes.

In this article we’ll look to explore the relationship between these two styles of business initiatives. We’ll provide some key differences as well as similarities. So if you’re still in the dark as to the difference, keep reading!

What’s a programme inside a business?

A programme is a strategic initiative that’s directly tied to helping a business achieve its objectives through implementing a change. It will often be an initiative to create something new, evolve the business or improve it in some way. Programmes should help performance and affect the lead KPIs of an organisation in some way. Effective programmes deliver outcomes.

Okay, so what’s a project then?

When we talk about a project, we’re referring to a chunk of tasks that combined deliver something tangible such as a new system, new equipment, a rebrand, a fresh website, training materials or premises. Projects have ‘deliverables’ through their lifespan; the completion of which represents success. Projects are made up of a temporary team of a project manager or management office who lead a group of deliverers – these can include developers, designers, creatives, writers, analysts, strategists – really any role that’s required. A project may be technological in nature or manifest offline such as council projects in the community. A project requires a budget, scope, timelines, deliverables and is managed on a daily basis. Projects deliver outputs.

A programme is far more broad and strategic in its rollout. But a programme almost always relies upon multiple projects to meet its desired outcomes.

Programmes support an evolution in the business

Programme managers and the programmes they’re responsible for have a close tie in to changes the leadership team and board wish to see in the business. When there’s an inefficiency or way to make the organisation do better work broadly, a programme is typically the best mechanism to ensure this happens. Passing the mandate directly to a project team could fail to completely realise a complex business objective.

Projects are isolated pieces of work to deliver tangible improvements along the way

This is not to say project teams aren’t strategic, but rather their purpose is to make the strategic objectives happen by breaking things down into logical stages. Let’s use an example to illustrate this better:

Example Programme: Mobile Self Service Roll Out
Example Projects:

App front end design project
Database refresh and infrastructure rebuild
Self Service relaunch marketing project

In the above example, the organisation may have a desire to offer their customers the ease of mobile phone interaction to get key tasks done. The projects are all related to achieving this, but all have fundamentally different skill sets required and timeframes. It’s not always the case that these projects would run totally independently, and in many cases project teams will work concurrently in close proximity. But it’s likely these projects would each have their own unique scope, budget, managers and timelines.

Programmes are often years in duration

As you might imagine a programme is a big piece of work. In some cases a programme is essentially an ‘always on’ due to these lasting upwards of 5 years or more.

However, it’s usually a good idea to keep controls around the timeline of a programme, much like with a project; if the end isn’t in sight, those responsible for delivering and the broader business can start to lose engagement in the process. With that said, a programme is centred more around strategic objectives that often require refinement along the way.

Most projects are shorter and fit within the programme they support

Projects will often start and finish multiple times within a programme’s duration. Given the projects have very functional sets of deliverables that contribute part of a programme’s requirements, project managers may not be involved in seeing the final outcomes desired by the business, but rather help deliver some key milestones. Returning to our example earlier, a technical project manager might help rebuild the back end of the customer database, but is unlikely to be involved in the big launch once a solution has been confirmed as working to requirements.

Outcomes vs. Outputs

Let’s consider the concept of outcomes vs outputs. An organisational programme is looked to distill financial or business goals into a coherent plan. This plan will drive business outcomes such as becoming a mobile-first experience for customers. The outputs that sit under being a mobile-first experience are what projects have to deliver on.

Let’s use another example of Outcomes and influencing Outputs:

Example
Outcome: The organisation reduces carbon footprint by 50% in the next 3 years.
Outputs:

Travel fleet moved over to electric cars
Transition to partial solar energy for main buildings
Update to all computer workstations to efficient desktop PCs
Moved to video conferencing for 90% of out of city meetings

Each of these outputs might require its own project – some larger, some smaller.

Projects consist of tasks that combined deliver a result

Inside a project there are many small tasks. The team completes tasks according to a scope and timeline. A well-managed project plan and delivery team should be able to identify achievements at the micro (e.g. daily) and macro (e.g. monthly) levels. The tasks combined should result in the project successfully achieving an output that pushes the business forward in its strategic goal.

Project teams work with methodologies designed to help effective and efficient work to be continually carried out. You may have worked with agile methodology before and been part of a ‘sprint’.

Programmes consist of projects that combined deliver a result

This doesn’t reflect how a programme manager works or the programme itself is measured. The project level of granularity would simply be too time consuming to manage at the programme level. Instead, a programme’s governance and reporting will be reliant upon each active project offering high level insights as to progress, timings and budget.

But it’s not just a high level project report that supports a programme’s progress reporting; other data points such as those from other BAU business units, key stakeholders and customer feedback are all essential measures of a programmes success.

Again, the programme is focused on the outcomes, the project on outputs.

A programme manager’s role

Understandably, a programme manager and project manager or lead have quite different work days. The skill sets are also quite different, although many a seasoned project manager has become an excellent programme manager; they can apply extensive project experiences and help craft realistic plans to deliver.

The main difference a programme manager has with the PM is the role is far more strategic and relationship-driven. The programme manager needs to meet leadership and key stakeholders frequently to provide updates on progress as well as be the guardian of what activity sits within that programme (in many cases this is protecting scope creep).

The programme manager will also be meeting with project managers regularly to get updates on each project’s status. They can use these interactions to identify any unforeseen business risks or thematic problems to be addressed. The programme manager has a lot of different relationships with staff above, beside and under them. It’s certainly not a role for those who prefer their work to be mostly solo!

A project manager’s role

The project manager’s day is very much focused on the delivery team. This means supporting them to be aware of and stick to timelines, and to provide their team with the tools and space to get the day to day work done. Project managers have much more traditional people management roles than someone working at the programme level and will commonly sit with their team ‘on the ground’.

The project manager also has a lot of reporting and critical thinking required in their job. Management of the project budget isn’t solely on the PM’s shoulders, but they’re certainly closest to the budget and the work being completed. This makes project managers the best placed to identify issues with budget or delivery timelines and find solutions to delays.

The project manager will also be involved in hiring staff into the team, allowing them to recruit team members who’ll help get the job done. Lots of projects include contractors, so PMs will need to be good at getting the most out of a contractor resource. Because of this, PMs (who will often be contracted themselves), may have slightly a different approach and experiences with leading a team vs. a normal business unit’s management. Expectations on delivery are typically higher with a team of contractors than permanent full time staff, so the project manager needs to be comfortable keeping productivity high, whilst still maintaining positive, respectful relationships with the team.

A programme relies upon projects being delivered in order to progress

While programmes exist that include permanent business units as part of delivery, most of the large-scale programmes we deal with require project teams to produce outcomes.

What this means is that a programme manager has a direct interest in the timings of project progress as well as any risks or blocks stopping a project’s completion. If one project in series is prevented from progressing, the whole business initiative could be pushed out. This is why leadership teams keep a close eye and interest on project issues.

The programme manager may have a core role in removing these barriers to completion, such as helping to secure more budget, resolve stakeholder disputes or devise an alternative solution.

All on the same team

It’s very common to see programme and project managers meeting and sharing ideas. Building strong relationships between these two roles is in every organisation’s best interests. In our role as the external quality assurance provider, we help to embed ways of working that ensure the most important conversations are happening regularly. If an organisation has clear lines of communication from CEO through to developer and everyone in between, the outcomes will most certainly be delivered faster, and to a higher standard.

Want to understand how your projects can better support the wider business programme?

The interplay between your individual project and the broader strategic objectives can get complicated without the right governance and communication plan. IQANZ offers expert programme assurance services, helping to untangle the most complex of programmes and set your business up for success. Get in touch with our team to chat about your programme and project challenges.