Program Realization True Look

Program Realization True Look

Guy Bevente, January 2023

It’s the start of a new year and teams are busy with planning efforts for what will hopefully lead to added business value through the use of technology to enable new products, drive more revenue, optimize costs, and gain a competitive advantage.

There are efforts abound focused on creating “1-N” lists of priority projects. Business cases finalized, decisions on top priority project made, and negotiations on project scope that continue.

Some teams are likely locked up in planning efforts. If you adopted one of the Agile or Scaled Agile frameworks, you are likely defining your initial release trains, and working on program increments, and debating if sprint sizes used last year still make sense. The hard- core waterfall teams are busy ensuring business requirements are ready and eager to move into technical specification.  UX teams are busy ensuring design standards are part of the new initiatives and the customer experience remains the leading focus of the solution. 

It’s also very possible that you are still waiting for funding for projects that need to get done this year.  

You already know that there is uncertainty and ambiguity in even the best program management processes. Yet, you need to press forward to begin programs to meet key business objectives for the year. 

Here is a question: Have you looked back at the programs and projects that were started last year to see how many delivered as promised?  Did you realize the defined value set when the program was funded, prioritized, and kicked off? 

There are many reasons why countless programs don’t meet expected goals. I’m not just talking about the project failures that are often the focus of the post-mortems and lessons learned effort. I’m also talking about strategic programs that were cancelled after months of work and meaningful capital was spent. I’m talking about funded programs that were significantly descoped, repurposed, or put on the shelf for review sometime in the future (possibly never).

If an organization adopts a realistic and true Program Realization discipline that shows funded programs delivered against initial programs funded, the data may suggest that something different is needed this year as you decide project priorities, begin program planning, and allocate funding. There is also a pretty good chance that members of your team at the front lines of delivery already know some of the immediate changes needed to increase program realization this year – make sure you ask them and make some of the needed changes.

Wishing you a year of success.