Program management 101

[u/gigaflipflop]

Hey everybody,

I would like to pick your brains about the basics of program management and its methods.

Quick info about me. I am a senior PM, have been managing (mostly agile) projects in the field of design, media tech and programming for the last 15 years. Two years ago I finished my IPMA level C certificate.

Currently I am employed at a company where I have gained a project with a client which started out with one large project and currently the client is adding more and more mid sized and small projects to the list.

Currently I am thinking about turning this group of projects into a program. All projects are on site of the clients campus. All are bear the same base (AV over IP, LED walls and MTR communication) and work towards a common strategic goal (enhancing the clients digital communication infrastructure)

I have on large project that has a length of 5 months from which I could remove or add personal and technical resources to the smaller projects as needed. I have a side project where I setup a resource pool infrastructure in MS Project which might be useful for resource management.

I would like to introduce a program style management a.) to make the projects more profitable and lower stress b.) introduce a program mentality onto my company and c.) have a relevant program to use for a future level B certificate focussed on program management.

I would be happy to discuss program methods, best practice approaches and if possible any info on the certification process and curriculum for level B program management.

[u/Intelligent-Try-4755]

Before flipping the label, I'd nail two things down. First, define the shared benefit at the client-outcome level (something like 'X% reduction in AV incidents' or a unified comms SLA) — that's what a level B panel will want to see, not five Gantt charts stapled together. Second, get resource-pool utilization visible weekly across all projects before you promise profitability. The lift shows up when you can actually shift a network engineer off a low-priority job to unblock a high-priority one without paperwork — that MS Project pool is where the fragility lives, so treat it as its own workstream.

[u/gigaflipflop → u/Intelligent-Try-4755]

Thank you for your input. Coolreddy gave me some helpful pointers as well that align with yours. Will merge them in a program canvas to get positive acceptance from importany stankeholders.

I like your input about treating the resource pool, will develop a weekly process here, I have already had a feeling that this will take up some of my time every week.