About this Course

The Program Management course addresses the essential aspects or Program selection, Scope, Planning, Execution, and Control.  The course provides a comprehensive introduction to the concept of “Program” distinguishing between the ideas of Project Management and Program Management.   Students will investigate the relationship between Project success and Program success understanding the ideas of Cost/Benefit Analyses, Benefits Assurance and Sustainment, and Program Benefit.  Program
Life Cycle is explored and several types of life cycles are presented and discussed.  As with Project Management, Program Management is comprised of sets of Program Management Processes segregated into 5 groups; students, with the use of a case study, will study and utilize the process groups of Initiation, Planning, Execution, Monitoring and Control, and Closeout.  This class is compliant with the Project Management Institute’s Standard for Program Management dated 2009. 

Audience Profile

This course is intended for project managers, managers of project managers, program managers and senior management wishing to gain a working knowledge of commonly accepted best practices for planning and managing deliverable bases Programs.  Program managers looking to improve their requirements analysis skills and looking to improve their understanding of how to identify the scope of and manage their Programs should take this course.  Students on a track to take the Program Management Professional (PgMP) examination should take this course.

Course Content

During this course, student will cover:

• Fluency in understanding the concepts of Program Management
• Understanding the Program Life Cycle 
• Understanding the Life Cycle Governance 
• Program/Project Selection and Scoping 
• Program Planning
• Implementing Program Management and its associated Technical Infrastructure
• Understanding and maximizing Program Benefits

Prerequisites

• Fluency in Project Management best practices and/or the 4th Edition of the Project Management Institutes Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge
• Real world Program and Project management experience

Course Outline

1. Understanding the mechanics or Program Initiation including development of the Business Case, development of the Benefit model, Initial strategic and Tactical planning, Program Scoping, and Program Authorization

2. Development of the Program Management Plan

• Program Management Plan 
• Program Benefits Statements

3. Internal and External interface identification and planning

• Interface Management Plan 
• Program Interface Identification

4. Program to Operations Planning 

• Transition Plan and Integrated Transition Agreements

5. Resource Planning 

• Resource identification at the project level 
• Human resources 
• Cross-project resource management 
• Organizational charts 
• Roles, Responsibilities, Accountability and Authority  

6. Program deliverable hierarchy and Program Breakdown Structure

• Program Breakdown Structure and Dictionary  

7. Development of a resource loaded Program Schedule

8. Cost Estimating and Cost Budgeting

9. Program Communications

10. Managing Programmatic risks at the Project level

11. Procurement Management

12. Program Implementation

13. Program Quality

14. Program Integrated/Cross Project Change Control 

• Change requests 
• Forecasting

15. Issue Management 

• Escalation protocol 
• Issue registers

16. Program Performance Assessment

• Performance Reporting
• Requests for Change