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Software Project Management

Notes effectiveness, efficiency, impact and sustainability. Evaluations also feed lessons learned into the
decision-making process of the project stakeholders, including donors and national partners.

4.1 Meaning

4.1.1 Programme Management

Programme Management is the procedure of managing numerous ongoing interdependent
projects. An instance would be that of designing, manufacturing and providing support
infrastructure for an automobile manufacturer. This necessitates hundreds, or even thousands,
of different projects. In an organization or enterprise, Program Management also reflects the
emphasis on coordinating and prioritizing resources across projects, departments, and entities
to make sure that resource contention is managed from a global focus. Five major features of
programme management are:
 Governance: Defining roles and responsibilities, and providing oversight.
 Management: Planning and administering both projects and the overall program.
 Financial Management: Implementation of specific fiscal practices and controls.

 Infrastructure: The program office, technology, and other factors in the work environment
supporting the program effort.
 Planning: Activities that take place at multiple levels, with different goals. The program
plan is not a traditional plan.
Program Governance

Program governance is the feature of the discipline that creates both the structure and practices
to guide the program and offer senior-level leadership, oversight, and control. Strategically, it
encompasses the relationship between the oversight effort and the enterprise’s overall business
direction.

Notes It also encompasses all the decision-making roles and responsibilities involved in
executing the program effort.
Projects are usually governed by a simple management structure. The project manager is
responsible for day-to-day direction, a senior IT executive integrates technology with business
interests, and a business sponsor is accountable for ensuring that the deliverables align with
business strategy.
Programs require a more compound governing structure because they involve fundamental
business change and expenditures with important bottom-line impact. In fact, in some instances
their outcomes determine whether the enterprise will survive as a viable commercial/
governmental entity.

Example: As we can see in Figure 4.1, unlike most projects, programs generally have a
steering committee or other group that represents different interests and provides executive-
level oversight. As the program evolves, this governing body ensures that it maintain to align
with the enterprise’s strategic direction and makes decisions that may eventually filter up to the
board of directors. Defining the role and decision-making powers of the steering committee is
a significant part of the program governance effort and should be done with an eye toward
facilitating rapid decisions and promoting a clear, unified direction.

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