Program Management in my opinion addresses business, technology and governance dimensions in a more holistic manner than project management. This means that questions such as delivering business value, alignment of the technology with the business vision and managing multiple stakeholder interests assume great importance. Typically the focus of project management is competion of deliverables within the parameters of scope, cost, time and quality requirements and rightly so. As against this, Program management looks outward and has to be necessarily holistic to be effective. Saving Changes...
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Rey MacalindongSenior Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist| BEST - Cardno Emerging MarketsCainta, Philippines
Project management has to be holistic in its approach, meaning it takes into consideration the external environment as well as its internal concerns. It considers the other projects being undertaken, the environmental factors beyond the control of the project team, and the different stakeholders (those that will be postively and negatively affected by project outcomes). It is not correct to say that only program management is holistic. It is an important consideration in project management. Projects do not exist in a vacuum. It is to a large exten depended on factors beyond its control. So in managing a project, a holistic perspective must be used to steer a project towards its objectives.
If program management is seen as a continuing activity or efforts to achieve objectives that will take time (longer duration) then its basically different from project management. Project management is not a continuing activity. It has a definite beginning and end.
I think the important distinction is the scope of program management vs project management. Program is made up of different projects, bigger in scope and takes time to accomplish. While projects have definite start and end, using limited resources and with definite objectives. But in terms of management, they are basically the same. The same PM tools and techniques, the same people management techniques, the same stakeholder management techniques. And both should be holistic in its approach. Saving Changes...
Bipin Lekshmanan PMPProject Manager| Wipro TechnologiesEdison, Nj, United States
Project management can be a huge effort if the project scope is huge. Then you can call it a program also. Buy, as mentioned by Rey, program management sounds like an ongoing operations job while project management specifies a defenite beginning and end to the activities undertaken. Saving Changes...
