3rd Edition PMI Program Management Guide Comments

Notification from PMI Regarding The Standard for Program Management—Third Edition

Thank you for participating in The Standard for Program Management—Third Edition Exposure Draft process. Below you will find a list of the recommendations that you have made and the committee’s decision for each of your recommendations. If you have any additional questions or comments you can contact Kristin Vitello at Kristin.Vitello@pmi.org.

If you are unsatisfied with the final decision made by the committee you have the opportunity to appeal. You will have until Thursday, 19 April 2012 to do so. Click on the “Go to Exposure Draft” link provided below for more information.

Go to Exposure Draft

Adjudication will end on: 5/3/2012

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The Standard for Program Management

Your Recommendation

Retitle: A guide to….

Your Justification

This document is neither “THE” nor a “STANDARD”.

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. This recommendation has been deferred, as it is out of scope for current update committee’s project charter. Your recommendation will be forwarded to next update committee for their consideration.

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The Standard for Program Management

Your Recommendation

Consider with care the role of “program” and redraft the document to reflect insight that better serves organisations. As written the guidance has some profoundly wrong perspectives that twist many many elements of the whole into something that is short of what it could be. It is important that you get this as right as it is currently possible to be, the influence the pmi weilds means other sources of guidance are chocked off – the world is deprived of better insight by the very fact that you publish this with flaws. Clearly being comissioned to write on programs has cause the authoring team some difficulties – Program is a nebulous concept without obvious and easily defended attributes – this has led to the authoring team grabbing ever possible program related concept and exagerating its importance and eclusivity. Please experiment by adopting pro-temp the view that there is no such concept as program, just projects of varying size and uncertainty, take the view that every project MUST have effort expended to deliver benefits and that all project and non-project activity comprises the portfolio – now see how much “program” guidance remains and how much claimed as program is just project and operational business.

Your Justification

many of my points can be linked to specific quotes from your draft – it is too onerous through this mechanism to link them – please cast your mind across the first 1,000 lines and I will note them as I go line by line (but not try to list them here). A project is a collection of coordinated activities that together deliver change to a system (organisation). A portfolio is the collection of all activity undertake by an organisation whether change oriented or business as usual (bau). These two points can be argued and tweaked but are essentially stable start-points. There are two undeniable concepts – project and portfolio Any enterprise is constituted with some form of accepted operating principles (governance – written or not) that is understood by those touched by its existance in any fashion. In general these say that the officers of teh company have a duty to protect those involved: society, workforce, consumers, shareholders(equity), bankers(debt)… As writen about in documents like the PMBoK Guide a project is described from a supplier’s perspective – temporary, delivers a result. As seen from the perspective of the enterprise’s officers it is an investment in change to BAU. The project is a set of activities that is PART of a change from current benifits realisation activity to future state with an amended portfolio of beneficial activity. What you call a project is actually in the eyes of those with a duty of care what you call a program. Problems arise as a result: The document under review is describe guidance for programs with a blinkered view that is pureley the viewpoint from the supplier’s domain. It is appropriate to wrap some projects in a common governance structure but your failure to differentiate what is program in supplier terms and activity to generate benefit from project in investor terms has coloured everything else written in this guide to be one-sided and weakened. As I go i’ll point out its affect on individual lines – each is individually small but there are so many the total effect is large, pervasive and sadly saps value from the end result. Simon@logicalmodel.net

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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1 Introduction

Your Recommendation

Review the whole document to remove tautology

Your Justification

many sentences use adjectives and express their meanings twice. They lengthen the document, add ambiguity and reduce clarity. For non native English speakers you leave them wondering if the dupication is expansion of concepts so you reduce their understanding. You not only have to have a clear view of what worthy practices are you have to be able to express them
with clarity. It takes less wrords and more effort than has been included and spent so far

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. The core committee has reviewed your recommendation and determined that the recommendation is editorial and not substantive. This request will be forwarded to the editorial department for possible inclusion.

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40 defines a program as “a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain

Your Recommendation

Consider if programs really exist, if so find a meaningful definition that is both inclusive of what IS a program and exclusive of what is not a program – as it stands the definition that is given fails any test. You cannot create dependable guidance without dependable foundations

Your Justification

A project is a collection of activities managed in a coordinate way to obtain benefits and control not available whne managing them individually – indesputably a project fits your program definition – oh sh*t! and now the problems start. With a definition that is not what we need then the arguments/ justifications/ conculsions that follow are at best unsafe and at worst selectively (“economically”) presented

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. The definition throughout the standard will reflect PMI’s Lexicon definition for Program: This line will be revised as follows: “A group of related projects, subprograms, and program activities, managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually.”

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42 program are related through a common goal. If the projects have separate goals and are

Your Recommendation

Find and use a clear, justifiable definition of program

Your Justification

both what you describe as program and what is known as project are described by “a collection of work-packages all of which are necassary and none of which is individually sufficient to deliver benefits” in a project work-packages may (or may not be) 80hrs effort. In a program are they projects? in a 80 work-package are they one person’s work in one shift? I suggest *if* programs exist in a manner useful to isolate and describe then their definition is best phrased in the means of their control during execution not their contribution to balance sheets and P&Ls which you repeatedly define as “strategy” but that is assumption not fact

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Accept with Mod Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. The sentence has been revised as follows: “… programs are related through a common goal, often of strategic importance to the sponsoring organizaiton.”

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47 The Standard for Program Management is an important and essential link in understanding

Your Recommendation

delete one of “important” or “essential”

Your Justification

if it is “essential” it must be “important” – tautology is undesirable in a document whose purpose is “standard” and “global”. If you aim is to improve capability and communicate across mother-tounge barriers simplify the langauge here and everywhere – if your writing a book to make money without regard to sagacity, veractity (etc) then how does that square with teh code of ethics!?

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. The phrase has been revised as follows: “”The Standard for Program Management is an important link in understanding…”

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49 management. Program management also enhances the delivery capabilities of the sponsoring

Your Recommendation

delete assertion that pgm mgmt enhances organisations – or cite the proof

Your Justification

Even research publishe in PMI journals is unable to establish a link to PMP status or PMBoK Guide use to improved results – can you justify improvements in something less concrete than projects when projects are stil in debate!? Guidance has to be realistic and reliable before practitioners can use what is trustworthy and fill gaps in what is still less well understood

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

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51 program management that is clear, complete, relevant, and generally recognized as good

Your Recommendation

delete “complete”

Your Justification

you cannot, ethically, claim to have written anything that is complete

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. The phrase has been revised as follows: “It provides information on program management that is generally recognized…”

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65 of program management among the following groups to promote efficient and effective

Your Recommendation

delete “efficient”

Your Justification

effective is viable but a project, let alone a collection of them has to be responsive and that is never(!) achieved by optimising some capabilities over others – projects are reactive – the anathma of efficient

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised as follows:In addition, this standard provides a common lexicon leading to a understanding of program management among the following groups to promote effective communication and coordination:

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73 • Stakeholders, to understand the role of program managers and how they engage the

Your Recommendation

replace “stakeholders” with “everyone with an interest”

Your Justification

Your own use of S/H begs questions of who is included and excluded. The PMBoK Guide 5th Ed manages to define stakeholders as “everyone” and you also need to propogate the definition as “everyone, whether affected or able to affect, whether interested or not”

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – The team who created the document came from a varied background including several from the government sector who have interest in large government initiatives. The team worked to make the text applicable to most programs most of the time. Your recommendation will be forwarded to next update committee for their consideration.

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76 the program governance board/steering committee, to precisely document the intended

Your Recommendation

delete ‘precise’

Your Justification

you cannot claim or suggest precision applies in anything project, let alone program linked

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted

Our justification:

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88 This introductory chapter provides an overview of The Standard for Program Management by

Your Recommendation

delete or move and merge with the first time the chapter’s purpose was described

Your Justification

fragmentation of the chapter’s purpose over several similar but different words and hence meanings weakens guidance

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

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100 regulations, and organizational and professional policies. Since practitioners come from

101 diverse backgrounds and cultures, the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct applies

102 globally. When interacting with stakeholders, practitioners must be committed to honest

Your Recommendation

reword to be correct – it is not the diversity of reader’s ethnicity that makes the guidance widely applicable but the reader’s diversity causes the need to be inclusive – it is vital that you write what you mean and mean what you write if guidance is to reliable – you don’t/ arent and it isn’t

Your Justification

pmi reach means everyone else’s ability to make serious inroads to influencing thinking is hugely depressed – your killing evolution of good thinking so we are all dependant on you upping your game on what you publish – the thinking is sloppy and partisan. It is capable of significant improvement. your not on the cutting edge of thinking and your not representative of what a well informed boardroom would recognise and that is reprehensible. you must take responsibility (under the ethics code if for no other reason) to be correct in facts and representative of opinions where facts are not possible

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. The core committee has reviewed your recommendation and determined that the recommendation is editorial rather than substantive. This request will be forwarded to the editorial department for possible inclusion.

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107

1.2 What Is a Program?

Your Recommendation

Reword the section to provide an answer to the question its heading proposes – at present youdo not answer the question.

Your Justification

While a program may be to paraphrase “coordinated activity managed together to deliver benefit not otherwise available” so to is a projet and so to is buiness as usual – to satisfy the title of this section in just “guidance” let alone “Standard” requires a definition that works to include what IS program AND works to exclude what is NOT program – you’ve fundamentally failed to provide adequate definition. From this flaw flows many errors in what follows – get it right – we neeed to provide reliable support to all those shareholders and tax payers who expect competent protection of their interests when managing organisation and societal change

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – The team who created the document came from a varied background including several from the government sector who have interest in large government initiatives. The team worked to make the text applicable to most programs most of the time. We do believe the current definition is representative for the current publication and was widely vetted. Your recommendation will be forwarded to next update committee for their consideration.

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110 coordinated way to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually.

Your Recommendation

Rewrite the section in one of two ways – or both 1) advise the reader that the definition is from the supplier’s perspective only or 2) properly consider that a total perspective of program must exclude what isn’t program as well as include what is

Your Justification

Every PROJECT ever executed has a pre and post project set of activities that define it and use its outputs to generate benefits. Every project is a collection of activity. All you are doing here is seeing a project from the customer’s view point and claiming a supplier’s interest in selling related services This standard has profound difficulty being meaningful because it pretends there is a topic here. all it is doing is seeing projects from the business perspective of idea, development, integration to operations. you have a profoundly important duty as standards writers to apply correct thinking and description to the nature of project based change. you get the guidance right when you get the foundational principals correct and build on them. Principle-1 is that the business defines and owns change, it maybe useful for them to have support, the support they need must see their world clearly to understand what needs doing Principle-2 is that there there are multiple axis of interest one is leadership and management, one is what vs how, others are value vs cost, certainty vs uncertainty, prioritisation of resource allocation…

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – The team who created the document came from a varied background including several from the government sector who have interest in large government initiatives. The team worked to make the text applicable to most programs most of the time. The current definition stated in the exposure draft matches the definition from PMI’s Lexicon. Your recommendation will be forwarded to next update committee for their consideration.

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112 A program is a group of related projects managed in a coordinated way to obtain benefits

Your Recommendation

delete

Your Justification

repeats 109 so adds lengtn but does not add value/ clarity – indeed for non-native-english readers repetition in alternate words often adds confusion

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised: We have deleted the redundant content and harmonized the definition to be consistent across the document.

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114 various components—the majority of these being the individual projects within the program.

Your Recommendation

clarify meaning at present it says most of eth components are projects where as the turth would be most of the effort spent is consumed by projects – most of the actions by type are probably not projects they are controls

Your Justification

as above

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

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124 enhancing current capabilities, or developing new capabilities for the organization,

125 customers, or stakeholders. A benefit is an outcome of actions, behaviors, products, or

126 services that provide utility to the sponsoring organization as well as to the program’s

127 intended beneficiaries or audience. To reinforce this important point, programs provide

128 organizations with the ability to deliver benefits to stakeholders, beneficiaries, or

129 customers, while at the same time delivering benefits (in the form of profitability or

130 business value) to the sponsoring organization.

Your Recommendation

Delete or reword to clarify what it is that is PROGRAM – as written one could substitute “operations” and the scentence would still be valid – this is not helpful in a section whose purpose is to isolate theefinition of program as a foundation to build guidance for their effective management

Your Justification

When you folk get these things wrong an army of less insightful people are prevented from moving forward because they won’t argue with your published words – you do double the damage when your insight is flawed to when you say nowt.

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the sentence has been revised as follows: “Programs and projects deliver benefits to organizations by generating business value, enhancing current capabilities, facilitating business change, maintaining an asset base, offerring new products and services to the market, or developing new capabilities for the organization…”

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134 the duration of the program, or may be delivered all at once at the end of the program.

Your Recommendation

reword to clarify your point

Your Justification

as written this applied to a project yet your currently trying to isolate teh definition of program

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

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144 and close of the program. The space shuttle program can be viewed as an example of unified

Your Recommendation

choose an example that is unambigious

Your Justification

Was the space shuttle program from end of Appollo to the last flight this year of the last shuttle or upto the first shuttle flight – was the program only those fights after the development. Since before first shuttle flight a series of work-packages where in train with a very clear goal – reusable vehicle the shuttle’s development was only and example of a big project, and the missions taht run from first to last ‘operational flight’ are easily described as a program whose connected result was the earning of revenue for nasa or eth creation of a us military capability or… The shuttle is a really poor example because there are so many differnt ways to envisage what your label is inclusive of and exclusice of. It is also a terribly parochial example.

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

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151

Your Recommendation

explain or replace with something meaningful

Your Justification

a picture for a pictures sake – it adds no value as presented. A benefits map with labels carfully chosen for self-evident meaning may add value here – this one does not

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. We considered this with the committee. Ultimately our decision was to leave the content as it stands. We do believe that the diagram adds value and this decision aligns with several comments which were submitted.

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156 The relationship among portfolios, programs, and projects is such that a portfolio refers

Your Recommendation

Reword the section to reflect teh key elements of the items listed in teh title

Your Justification

The weak start above is now causing secondary weaknesses. A portfolio is all activity within some boundary – typically an organisations total human and financial capital as defined in employment law and accounting conventions. The portfolio’s activity can only be one of two types: first that which delivers the ongoing utility (eg servicing customers and making profits) – whose end is not envisaged on any specific event or date – we might call this ‘business-as-usual’ and second ‘change’. Change always has an envisaged end even if we lack ability to describe it at the start. The end is always anticipated even if undefinable in advance or at any specific time. Change ranges over two aspects of definition: what and how – these are the twin dimensions of Scope (that pmbok manages to screw-up by putting half of the use of decomposition in time management instead of having activity definition in scope where it belongs)

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

Our justification: Thank you for participating in PMI’s public exposure draft process. We truly value your opinion. However, we will defer your recommendation at this time due to a collaborative effort to align and harmonize selected content with other PMI foundational standards. The harmonized content reflects the alignment of multiple standards and the consensus agreement with other standards development committees. In January of 2012, PMI presented the selected harmonized content in another public exposure draft where recommendations were reviewed and changes were incorporated. Since this process was recently performed, recommendations on the harmonized content from this round of public exposure are collected and deferred. Because your recommendation belongs in this category, we are deferring your feedback to the next harmonization cycle. If you would like additional information regarding this process, please contact Quynh Woodward at Quynh.woodward@pmi.org.

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164 organization’s strategic plan by means of the organization’s portfolio.

Your Recommendation

162-164 reword to say what you mean

Your Justification

this is a circular definition. the portfolio’s components don’t have to be linked by stragetic plan – the portfolio will include tactical elements so “linked to the org’s strategic plan by the portfolio’ isn’t necessarily correct

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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166 As Figure 1-2 illustrates, organizational strategies and priorities are linked and have

167 relationships between portfolios and programs, and between programs and individual

168 projects. Organizational planning impacts the projects by means of project prioritization

169 based on risk, funding, and other considerations relevant to the organization’s strategic

170 plan. Organizational planning can direct the management of resources, and support for the

171 component projects on the basis of risk categories, specific lines of business, or general

172 types of projects, such as infrastructure and process improvement.

Your Recommendation

delete

Your Justification

adds words but without meaning – thus without value

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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169 based on risk, funding, and other considerations relevant to the organization’s strategic

Your Recommendation

if you don’t dlete the chunck then at least say what matters with clarity – reword to express that prioritisation is ALWAYS on margin eg NPV – surplus of VALUE over cost at an acceptable level of uncertainty

Your Justification

as written you (yet again) mention cost (funding) but not return – with this wrong mindset follows wrong guidance in the rest of the publication – you must get eth introduction correct and then extend they foundations with logical extension in order to provide usable guidance – currently the world as reflected in this publication is only that of the supplier not of the investor – you need both to be roundde and meet the obligations of teh ethics code

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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182 Components within a program are related through a common outcome or delivery of a

183 collective set of benefits. If the relationship among the projects is only that of a

184 shared client, seller, technology, or resource, the effort should be managed as a

185 portfolio of projects rather than as a program. In programs, it is important to integrate

Your Recommendation

Reflect this observation through the 180 lines before here and eth several thousand after – currently this nugget is not influencing the rest of the writing sufficiently

Your Justification

Many places in the publication muddy the definitions of pgm by claimin more to them than they have legitimate right to include

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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187 this by working in five (5) interrelated and interdependent Program Management Performance

Your Recommendation

delete the number in brackets

Your Justification

it adds nothing. if you think “five” may not be understood by your reader ship you seriously need to question use of words like “lexicon”.

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. The core committee has reviewed your recommendation and determined that the recommendation is editorial rather than substantive. This request will be forwarded to the editorial department for possible inclusion.

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205 Through structured oversight and governance, program management enables appropriate

Your Recommendation

and et seq tp 210 – Delete or reword to say something meaningful: What is “Structured oversight” and “optimised pacing” – if these things are capable for cogent expansion say what you mean then label the concept – then you can use the lable. Like this you win a prize for bull-shit bingo

Your Justification

The document is supposed to provide the reader with an accessible basis for running some sort of change initiative that is not a project, yet all you do is make assertions that yield to challenge because they are not supportted by simple illustration of examples. This block could be replaced by “prior thought about what is to be achieved and how improves chances of sucess” – at least this one won’t leave half your readership puzzling about optimised pacing Be clear and honest. It appears to me that the struggle the authorship team experiences to make a ‘program’ into something seperate from a project has eroded your confidence so we experience a flurry of fluffy block of text like this one that obfuscate meaning (aka bullshiting the reader)

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: We have received your comment on the exposure draft for The Standard for Program Management–Third Edition. No change was made to the text in response to this comment. The review team will not address recommendations that contain profanity.

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221 strategy producing better performance, better results, and a sustainable competitive

Your Recommendation

Reword – The use of “better” is a comparative so better than what?

Your Justification

Terms like better left to hang in the air without both sides of the comparison are either sloppy thinking or an advertiser’s attept to sway opinion where no real discriminator exists – If you want to say “xxx is better” then the sentence ends “…than yyyy BECAUSE reason and reason and reason” does opm really work? are there any published surveys? The ones I’m aware of do not show a correlation – positive or negative

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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230 realize specified benefits. Project management develops and implements plans to achieve a

Your Recommendation

Reword or delete to reflect what pgm mgmt is about instead of claiming things that it isn’t about

Your Justification

An enterprise returns utility to shareholders, debtors, workers, customer and society: this duty rests with all those involved in its operations. That duty is overseen by the officers of the enterprise however legally consituted. – They have oblligation to care for benefits as defined by all communities in the short (tactical) and long (strategic) terms Projects deliver change. Within them subject matter expertise combine skills to determine how to create a change to business as usual that matched “what” was requested by those with a duty to sustain capital and return on capital. If you want to add a concept of ‘program’ to the preceeding two truths then (unless you can argue cogently to the contrary and this document does not) program is a control function whose purpose is the aggregation of project control needs that provides inter-project coordination and provides economies of scale by the removal of duplicated controls in each project.

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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243

Your Recommendation

Rewrite the table such that each row expresses a consistent set of concepts that change in nature such that someone looking at an initiative can say “this is project because….” at teh moment any comparison will fit every box on the chart. EG EVERY project manager continiously monitors change in the broad internal/ external environmnent – we don’t capture that their definition of “external” is different. Every PMgr expects change from inside and outside and is prepared for as much as is possible. Every Program manager keeps change managed and controlled

Your Justification

There is no point in including text that does not guide, differentiate, educate or normalise and this tabble does none of these things. It waffles close enough to the target to give an illusion of relevance but it waffles too much to be useful when called upon to assist.

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

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257 activities and involves managing the processes at a level higher than those pertaining to

Your Recommendation

replace “pertaining” with simple language

Your Justification

Here and everywhere else the language is outside the core of simple words the chances that readers get lost goes up. We already have a complex topic it is your duty to look for every opportunity to simplify its description – written once and read tens of thousands of times means the effort must be yours to generate the maximum leverage for all those hours spent by readers and the many more spend implementing what they absorb

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

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279

Your Recommendation

Define terms you use – What is a sub-program ? is it a collection of projects withon a collection of projects? Is it a clooection of non-project activity within a program. For that matter define “non-project activity” as may be legitimate within a program

Your Justification

as for “pertains” above – write once read and use many means the duty of clarity is on you to express well – it takes effort to do it well

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, a definition for sub-program will be added to the glossary

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312 budget and schedule updates, earned value cost performance reports, change requests and

Your Recommendation

delete “cost”

Your Justification

Applies to all EV assessment and analysis not just cost

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. The paragraph has been revised as follows: “Similarly, the program’s benefits delivery, transition, and closing phases provide key data to the portfolio management function. This data may include program status information, program performance reports, budget and schedule updates, earned value and other types of cost performance reporting, change requests and approved changes, and escalated risks and issues.”

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317 A portfolio is one of the truest measures of an organization’s intent, direction, and

Your Recommendation

Reword – A portfolio is not a measure. Its contents may be measurable. Perhaps you should say “analysis of a portfolio’s aggregate content will reflect the organisation’s currently agreed strategic intent” But you might also have to say “analysis of the degree of agreement about teh portfolio’s content will reflect the management style of the organisation, the dynamics of its market place and its board’s ability to react in a timely manner”

Your Justification

What is currently written is wrong – a portfolio is not a measure – so the thinking behind the pen is not descriptive, in this case not analytically relaible and so I wonder where else does it say unreliable things that I might later rely upon to guide my duties within organisations. If they suffer do I say “not my fault, I followed their book?” that doesn’t offer equity holders or staff any comfort. What we all expect is that you spend the time to write well

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

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323

1.4.3 The Interactions Among Portfolio, Program, and Project Management

Your Recommendation

Delete the words and diagram

Your Justification

They simply repeat what has already been written several times in the preceeding 300 lines and drawn in the last 50.

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

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345 During their life cycle, projects produce deliverables, whereas programs deliver benefits

Your Recommendation

Rewrite the whole guide with a correct and clear view of what your talking about. We are back to the profound crack in your foundations: Every enterprise delivers benefits without any programs. It is the duty of the enterprise’s officers. Wise ones attempt to satisfy as many stakeholders concurrently to the maximum degree possible. Then change comes along and so we need activity that is often labelled “project”. For the officers of teh company the duty to integrate the project’s outputs into operations to deliver benefits was constant. As you’ve written so far “program” is just the business perspective on “project”. Now there may be a beast that deserves the lable program that differentiates it from sinple project but you have yet to isolate what it is that would define it, what actions taht difference would drive, what advantage or consequence their is from describing program.

Your Justification

We need you folk to say what is true and say it well and not to waffle around to appear to fulfil your brief – youve been given a difficult brief – 50 years of current trends has created some memes that are powerful but not in our best interests – your the best hope the rest of us have to turn-around the mistakes that mean management of change is not keeping up with the demands of change in our economies

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

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623

2.3.1 Program versus Project Uncertainty

Your Recommendation

Delete and replace with guidance to correctly reflect the reality of uncertainty in program risk management. This section is deeply troubling as it is diametricall opposite in what it says to what it should say. It illustrates a profound misunderstanding of program risk management. Just ask your-selves “is an insurance company subject to more uncertainty because it insures many people or less?” The obvious answer is that the insurance company has almost no risk from the uncertaities that it underwrites due to the increas in the number of uncertaintes the laws of large populations start to apply – Have none of you read Bernstien, understood the difficulties of outliers in project risk. If programs were more unceratin than projects and amplified threat then chief financial officers would long ago have killed them off as a means to enact change.The reality is programs (if they actually exist) provide the means to more economically cover threat impact and increase h eprobability of opportunity realisation because of their greater variety or content and richer interactions over large resource pools. The correct contents for this section includes at least the following, this is incomplete = A program must provide the projects with the a defined, common set of scales for risk assessment so that everyone know what “serious” means in impacts across all program sucess criteria, across proximity and probability terms. The program must accomodate change in assessment as time moves on – eg a 6 week variance (positive or negative) with 52 weeks to respond is different to a 6 week varience with 4 weeks to respond and slip is different to gain (but not necessarily more or less serious) = a program must set the risk management process in place including the means for uncertainties to be escalated to high enough strategc/ financial authority or ‘delegated’ to appropriate technical authorities for design of solutions and or sanction of solutions = each project (a program is only project and program activity) must identify its risks and record them centrally so that a program wide view of repeated or interacting opportunities and threats is visible for cross project aggregation. = THE PROGRAM must look at project risks for common cause, common impact or common responses and may then handle centrally or delegate into a project the handling of a risk (threat or opportunity) on behalf of all program elements = A program must underwrite project threats that are of high impact and low probability by forming contingencies across large number of risks – THIS IS self-insuring = While uncertainty can occur in any axis of program activity it is only risk when its outcomes affect some aspect of the baselines that someone cares about. So the program must define (for example) program critical path so schedule uncertainty can be assessed to deterine if it is schedule risk – using up 6 out of 12 weeks float is not a threat. Keeping resources that would otherwise have been idle busy for an extra 6 weeks may be an opportunity, the costs of the extra resources may be an cost threat – only by knowing te program baseline can project risk be assessed against the program benefits – uncertainties in projects must be assessed vs baselines in the PROGRAM.

Your Justification

We need you folk to publish good guidance and this section isn’t just poorly written its plain wrong, wrong statistically, wrong in practice, wrong

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. The references are intended to be representative not all inclusive. However, we will broaden the topic somewhat to be more inclusionary.

OriginalText

629 “progressive elaboration” that constrains and controls uncertainty throughout their life

Your Recommendation

Reword to be correct

Your Justification

Progressive elaboration DOES NOT CONSTRAIN risk, it is a reactive approach to the uncertainty that exists. When we are highly certain we plan (fore-cast, pre-dict) a long way into the future. When uncertainty is high we say-in-advance-our-intended-actions (plan) only a little way. Progressive elaboration is not changing the amount of unknownness in the future You thinking is so wrong I want to cry – we need management of change to be something society is good at and humanity isn’t because of our pyschology. We will never get to dealing with the difficult questions if the most influential guidance is so far off solving the trivial stuff

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. The references are intended to be representative not all inclusive. However, we will broaden the topic somewhat to be more inclusionary.

OriginalText

635 modified to fit the environment in which the program is conducted and are unpredictable

636 and difficult to define in advance. This in turn increases the uncertainty, making the

Your Recommendation

Remove teh tautology and sharpen up your thinking and writing

Your Justification

“Unpredictable” means “can not be spoken before the event” as is “difficult to define in advance”. Sometimes saying things twice helps communication by reinforcing a message: as written this in’t one of those times

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. In response to your comment and those of others, we have modified the paragraph read: “This results in an initial program environment that is recognized to be uncertain, and implies the need for a management style that embraces uncertainty in order address it more effectively. Because a program’s approach may be modified during the course of the program to optimize pursuit of its goals, program activities may be observed either to decrease uncertainty, or at times to “uncover” it (leading to perceived increases in uncertainty).”

OriginalText

637 conduct of individual programs distinct and unique. When considering programs in this way,

Your Recommendation

remove tautology

Your Justification

unique must be distinct otherwise it would not be unique

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

OriginalText

638 it is also clear that programs may include individual component projects that are 100%

Your Recommendation

Think, just for a second what your saying and then rewrite the point to reflect it Nothing (including a project) can be “100% sucessful” if it destroys the investors equity – what you might have meant is a commission may be discharged 1005 to its contract but due to changes in context it no longer returns the benefit the PURCHASER had hoped for. The whole of this publication is partisan to the suppliers perspective and blind to the investor’s perepsective – now that migh be OK if you title the document or explain earlyon that you take only one party’s viewpoint – that would be honest and save you rewriting the whole document – but you cannot publish this as supporting the ethics guide’s stricture of always putting the interests of the investor/ client/ comissioning authority first

Your Justification

As written the sentiment is a nonesense – only the supplier gains in a situation where the customer must pay a bill to discharge a contract where their intended benefit has disappeared. When how you see the world misses a perspective then what you write as guidance misses the same perspective – in this case what you miss is material to your aims

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. In response to your comment and those of other revieers we have modified the paragraph to read as follows: When considering programs in this way, it is also clear that programs may include individual component projects that are entirely successful in achieving their intended delivery; providing outputs, products or services precisely as planned, but in the context of the program’s outcomes and desired benefits, may not contribute at all to the outcomes that were anticipated. This creates additional uncertainty about the results the program may achieve.

OriginalText

646 them individually”, it becomes apparent that cumulative uncertainty is amplified with each

Your Recommendation

AGGGGHHH this is so ignorant Cumulative uncertainty IS NOT AMPLIFIED because these are probabilistic events and the use of a Gausian or Normal distribution becaomes MORE AND MORE relevant – predictability increases – uncertainty decreases

Your Justification

Any text on statistics, any underwriters day-to-day work, and maths grad, any street card-shark, any casino….

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Several comments were received on this section. To reflect the spirit of all comments, this paragraph has been removed.

OriginalText

655

2.3.2 Program Versus Project Change

Your Recommendation

Delete and replace with something credible, balanced and insightful that adds value and is teh vasis for gyuidance

Your Justification

Currently we have something like “The Emperors New Cloths” Program change is different to project change but not like you’ve written here. Project change IS NOT about limiting (L663) change IT IS about propogating the affect of change in one axis of baseline through to the other axis so that authorised decision makers can reassess their benefit equation. As an investor acting across a contract, either “of employment (with staff)” of “for services (with another legal entity” it is my utterly irrepressable right to change anything at any time provided I make appropraite provision and compensation. Change control, whether internal to a legal entity or not is about “what if we…” planning. This is true for everything tha alters any aspect of value generated or timing of value delivery or ost incurred or timing of costs either by action or inaction related to scope (aka quality) or resources applied. ALL change control must therefore be rooted in product creation – projects where what-if planning identifies options for future activity. In a program the nature of the change may decommission, replace or add projects – thats all that is different. In a projet the most extreme change is only to terminate

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. The references are intended to be representative not all inclusive. However, we will broaden the topic somewhat to be more inclusionary.

OriginalText

663 stakeholders limit the amount of variance from the planned cost and schedule while

Your Recommendation

If this section as written is salvageable then change “limit” to “balance”

Your Justification

Change management should not limit it should express options

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. In response to your comment and those of other reviewers we have modified the sentence to read as follows: In projects, change management is employed to help the project manager, team, and stakeholders monitor and control the amount of variance from the planned cost and schedule while protecting the approved attributes and characteristics of the planned output.

OriginalText

665 is required that impacts the cost, schedule, or output, then a change request is developed

Your Recommendation

If this section is salvageable add “benefits” before costs

Your Justification

Only for the supplier might cost (revenue and thus profit) be first – for the customer it is benefit that is first in the list of impacts “this change benefits me in such a way … and that is at the consequences of…”

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. In response to your comment and those of other reviewers we have modified the sentence to read as follows: “If a change is required that impacts the benefits, cost, schedule, scope, quality, output (deliverable) or expected benefits, then a change request is developed to modify either the cost, schedule, or intended output (deliverable) of the project.”

OriginalText

672 management to constrain the variance caused by risks and events the project encounters on

Your Recommendation

Replace the scentence with reality instead of an artificial attempt to make-out that program have more distinguishing features than perhaps they do. Your bullshitting us 🙁

Your Justification

Projects constraining change just doesn’t happen in a world where people want to keep their jobs and companies want to keep their customers. More than that very often we sell, either literally across contract or figuratively within the organisation a project at a loss-lead win-the-business price promise and then accentuate every opportunity to introduce change so we can re-apply the pricing mechanics with a new set of dynamics to turn a profit Please get real

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

676 fundamentally different way. Program managers depend on a predetermined, consistent level

Your Recommendation

Replace with correct description of differences

Your Justification

Change only occurs in the cost/ benefit equation, either magnitude or timing (note cost and benefit don’t have to be money). C//B affcts arise from deliverables – outputs created by projects, so can only be created and sized in projects and analysed at program level – since that is where the aggregate benefit is expressed

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

681 contribute positively to the program’s outcome and will not produce negative results. For

Your Recommendation

delete, or expand to be balanced

Your Justification

Assuming positive is a route to disaster – hoping for and promoting positive is sensible but expect negatives to accompany positives is required

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised as follows: For all remaining components, the program manager should require that each will be performed in a manner that will contribute positively to the program’s outcome and will not produce negative results

OriginalText

688 unexpected results—results that may not contribute positively to the intended benefits of

Your Recommendation

Add balance – results always have unexpected affcts – some are also positive

Your Justification

enexpected is not just negative – although humans are more sensative to negative outcomes than equivellently sized positive ones

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised as follows: …but will produce entirely unexpected results—results that may or may not contribute positively to the intended benefits of the program.

OriginalText

693 context of the new environment. When this occurs, the program manager employs change

Your Recommendation

change “new” to “evolving”

Your Justification

improves the meaning of teh guidance offered

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: .Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised as follows: …knowing they will not help achieve the desired program benefits if left unattended in the context of the evolving environment.

OriginalText

696 the program’s beneficiaries.

Your Recommendation

Reword to remove the program rar-rar spin. These sentiments apply to any sponsored change whether program or project.

Your Justification

Adding ‘spin’ that presents facts selectively is not true to the ethics guide and makes for untrustworthy guidance.

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

703 To summarize, projects employ change and change management to constrain or limit the

Your Recommendation

Delete

Your Justification

What is written just is not true

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. The references are intended to be representative not all inclusive. However, we will broaden the topic somewhat to be more inclusionary.

OriginalText

32 broken into more easily managed subprojects. These efforts remain within the discipline of

Your Recommendation

Define the “Sub-” elements We get Subprojects, subprogram (L109), subportfolio (L157), sub initiative (755) so what are they? is a subportfolio a program, a project What? We are told (L-1314) that “program componnts and projects produce individual products” So what is a component that is not a project and produces deliverables!

Your Justification

Vauge terms lead to ambigious guidance. Good guidance avoids ambiguity where possible – this is a case where it is possible to provide definitions

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. While the review team believes the submitter misinterpreted line 30, to ensure clarity for this paragraph, the sentence following this line has been revised as follows: These “programs” include large individual projects or a single large project that is broken into more easily managed subordinate projects. Because these efforts are more accurately characterized as projects, not programs, they remain within the discipline of project management and, as such, are addressed in the PMBOK® Guide. A definition of the term subprogram has also been provided to clarify this point for readers.

OriginalText

362 Organizations address the need for change by creating strategic business initiatives to

363 modify the organization or its products and services. Organizations use portfolios,

364 programs, and projects to deliver these initiatives.

Your Recommendation

Reflect the truth of these observations throught the document

Your Justification

These three lines are good insight

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Sincere thanks for your positive feedback!

OriginalText

404 Successful business value realization begins with comprehensive strategic planning and

Your Recommendation

Reword – Sucess improves with… it is not a necessity to use strategic planning to realise value

Your Justification

it is not a necessity to use strategic planning to realise value

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

410 program, and project management techniques is essential.

Your Recommendation

change “essential” to “useful”

Your Justification

Value is returned in many circumstances where change (Portfolio, Pgm & Pj) is not involved – indeed change often destroys value

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

432 project management activities by strengthening organizational enablers such as structural,

433 cultural, technological, and human resource practices. By continuously conducting

Your Recommendation

Reword – there are no such things as “…structural…practices” – so what do you mean?

Your Justification

Not clear what is meant as currently written

Our vote on your recommendation: Deferred

OriginalText

461 A program manager should have strong communication skills to interact effectively with

Your Recommendation

reword to emphasise faciltating communications between stakeholders.

Your Justification

The program manager’s role is to get the right people communicating, not to be the principle in every conversation

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

466 develop a stakeholder engagement plan to support affected stakeholders, help align their

Your Recommendation

delete “affected”

Your Justification

All stakeholders, by definition are affected (even if their main invovement is to affect)

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted

Our justification:

OriginalText

480 making decisions, and resolving conflicts and issues. Program managers work with component

Your Recommendation

Reword – maybe “..resolving issues shuch as conflicts.”

Your Justification

better expression of intentions?

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

516

2.1 Program Management Performance Domain Definitions

Your Recommendation

Add descriptive elements for delivery of project outputs

Your Justification

A program, if they exist, is a wrapper around a group of changes. Changes are created by projects. Each change can only be some combination of altered/ added/ deleted behaviours, inputs, outputs, processes, or staffing of the organisation – without saying something about these description of “performance domains” is lacks what really counts !

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. No change was made to the text in response to this comment. Recommended change does not reflect a level of detail that is consistent with the remainder of the content in the standard. The role of programs as a business change process is discussed later in Chapter 1 and in Chapter 2.

OriginalText

545

2.1.1 Program Life Cycle Phases Defined

Your Recommendation

Have a profound rethink about what you expect this standard to achieve and who for: this section is a description of A PROJECT from the customer’s perspective

Your Justification

Without clarity of who you are writing for you cannot determine what to write.

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. We considered this within the committee. Ultimately our decision was to leave the content as it stands as it defines the topic as good practice on most programs most of the time.

OriginalText

558 progressively elaborate the business or mission statement objectives and expected program

Your Recommendation

Reconsider your model and then write some world enhancing guidance. A phase cannot progressively elaborate the program – progressive elaboration runs across phases. One suggestion of what a program is says that it differs from a project because a project’s end-point is definable at the start while a program’s is not. In this case the program’s scope is progressively elaborated – that is not a phase but a property – In this definition of a program the end may be recognised as having ocurred in hindsight rather than foresight The argument continues that if the end is clearly defined it is a project, but regardless there is no need to progressively elaborate

Your Justification

All we have at the moment is a project from the ‘full-lifecycle’ perspective. If program is to be something where extra insight is required then either that insight is required by/ provided to project customers or the supplier side needs to be reconsidered for what is a program. Another definition of program says it is a group of projects whose outputs are all necessary but none is individually sufficinet to deliver eth benefits – personally I see no distinction here between this “program” and a project which must be a group of work-packages (or phases) all of which are required and none of which is individually sufficient

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: “Program definition activities typically occur as the result of a an organization’s plan to fulfill strategic objectives or achieve a desired state within an organization’s portfolio. The primary purpose of the program definition phase is to progressively elaborate the strategic objectives to be addressed by the program, define the expected program outcomes, and seek approval for the program.”

OriginalText

563 • Program Closure—The purpose of this phase is to execute a controlled closure of

Your Recommendation

Rewrite

Your Justification

we are stillin supplier terratory

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

563 • Program Closure—The purpose of this phase is to execute a controlled closure of

Your Recommendation

Add descriptions of closure to the document

Your Justification

While the table at L-2417 says that closure is in sections 8.2.3, 8.3.3 – these are omited from the document and thus cannot be reviewed

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. The core committee has reviewed your recommendation and determined that the recommendation is editorial rather than substantive. This request will be forwarded to the editorial department for possible inclusion. The table references will be corrected.

OriginalText

573

Your Recommendation

Redraw to show overlap, remove misrepresentations…

Your Justification

As drawn the diagram is profoundly misleading – they are not sequential Definition happens repeatedly, closure is not (necessarily) of equal size to the other two.

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. We considered this with the committee. Ultimately our decision was to leave the content as it stands. The team strongly feels that because operations and other work may be occurring throughout the planning phase, programs may have work in phases occurring on an ongoing or overlapping basis. Gate reviews may be appropriate for project based programs but may not apply when the majority of work is operations based, therefore this comment is rejected.

OriginalText

578 Regardless of duration, all projects follow a similar trajectory. A program is initiated

Your Recommendation

replace “tradjectory” with a meaningful word or phrase

Your Justification

You reduce your communication with non-native english speakers using simiarlies like “tradjectory” – say it plainly not “cleverly”, communicate widely and clearly.

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: “Regardless of duration, all programs follow a similar trajectory.”

OriginalText

587 implementation is collectively known as program activities. The names and descriptions of

Your Recommendation

Correct the grammar

Your Justification

use of “is” does not match the plural

Our vote on your recommendation: Editorial

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. The core committee has reviewed your recommendation and determined that the recommendation is editorial rather than substantive. This request will be forwarded to the editorial department for possible inclusion.

OriginalText

590 activity focuses on the individual project and its deliverables while the program risk

Your Recommendation

Correct error or reword for what you mean

Your Justification

Risk planning must focus on consistency across the program, therefore risk planning is a program duty not a project one: risk response planning may be project specific, risk identification is project specific – at least to start with.

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: “For example, project risk management activities focus on the individual component projects while program risk management incorporates project-level risks and program-level risks to address the overall risk to the program (see Section 8.4).”

OriginalText

596 support individual program components as the components implement and control their own

Your Recommendation

Correct the sentiment expressed Risk planning flows down, risk ID flows up while the response depends on the nature of the responses – this is similar for other management strategies across projects in the program

Your Justification

Definition of management strategies is a program duty, each then informs the projects of norms and constraints. The other way around leads to chaos

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: “Following the same example, results of the individual component project risk planning efforts provide input to the program risk planning effort. Risk control is performed continuously at both the program component level and the program level itself; project level risks may be escalated to the program level or have a cumulative effect that requires the risks to be addressed at the program level.”

OriginalText

2 {ED NOTE: All graphics will be professionally drawn and a References section will be added

Your Recommendation

Do NOT overlap exposure draft review period

Your Justification

Creates too much demand for time availabe

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. However, this is an insufficient recommendation – cannot determine what is being recommended – Submitter provided insufficient information in the recommended change to allow a review and disposition.

OriginalText

2 {ED NOTE: All graphics will be professionally drawn and a References section will be added

Your Recommendation

Provide a longet review period

Your Justification

Reading almost 4,000 lines requires 1,300 a week if comments are to be provided in 4 weeks, each 1,000 ines takes over a full day to enter comments – 1 month is not realistic

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

2 {ED NOTE: All graphics will be professionally drawn and a References section will be added

Your Recommendation

Provide all the materials

Your Justification

This draft misses 8.2.3 and 8.3.3. How a program transitions into business as usual is a key element of guidance, to omit it reduces or removes the validity of the review process

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. We will review and correct the inconsistencies while ensuring the overall flow of the document.

OriginalText

The Standard for Program Management

2 {ED NOTE: All graphics will be professionally drawn and a References section will be added

Your Recommendation

Action comments recieved and then provide the next draft for review before proceeding

Your Justification

This document is so far away from world-changing insight & guidance that injection of improvement and repair to the errors will generate a document that is in the ‘ready for review’ state

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

605 the number of programs that exist. Normally, organizations pursue and implement similar

Your Recommendation

Somewhere you must say that while the nature of programs is infinitely varied the people in an organisation and a country and a market-place learn ‘accepted’ pappetrns of response to events – thus HOW programs are managed becomes ‘set in its ways’. Current failure modes are embedded in the current culture, or tone or pattern of responses – a corporate even global ‘script’. Changing the ways people respond is extremely hard both in an organisation and globally. One such potential lever of change would be this document if it was writtn to say teh right, insightful contents instead of invent a bit, mistake a few bits and pretend a bit

Your Justification

That behaviour is learned and scripted is describe in many sources that your document lacks the ability to be world-changing is eveident in the wider collection of comments

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: “How much interaction there will be and when it should occur will depends upon the program and its components. The amount of interaction for any given program is as varied as the number of programs that exist.”

OriginalText

608 are similar and often repetitive. Large technology organizations often prescribe domain

Your Recommendation

Make note somewhere (add) that prescribing or constraining business for the convienience of the ICT function is the ‘tail wagging the dog’. ICT is a cost that enables benefit and the business is teh benefit engine so it is the business that should define the trade-offs between freedom and its cost, not ICT technology programs taht should remove choice – they should recommend defined interactions should be limited to defining interfactes or architecture between dissimilar groups to allow implementation freedoms beyond the interfaces

Your Justification

A point of importance that is missing from those presented

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: ank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. No change was made to the text in response to this comment. Recommended change does not provide sufficient improvement in the existing text to warrant the change. Reflects a view of only one particular type of program.

OriginalText

611 intensity. These domains are the areas in which program managers will spend their time

612 while implementing the program. They accurately reflect the higher-level business

613 functions that are essential aspects of the program manager‘s job—regardless of size of

Your Recommendation

Add these sentiments to the role of the program manager section

Your Justification

these observations cross reference where teh PgmMgr’s role description is expanded with details of actions to be taken and objectoves of those actions

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

619 characterized as unique and temporary, programs are often large, complex, lengthy, and

Your Recommendation

NO NO NO, Please find meaningful, insightful things to say: Programs and project are both temporary, both unique so this is not a differentiator. If programs are just bigger than projects then there is no disciline to write about outside of teh pmbok guide, if there is a discipline then you have to realy analyse what are the essential differences, what are the consequences of those differences for management activity that directs sucess. Your a million miles off at teh moment. The world havs big projects and small programs so it is not size, the world has simple projects and programs and complex projects and programs so it is not complexity. The world has well defined projects. Is it possible to have a poorly defined project or is that the determinant of program – there is a school of thought taht says so but that would not contradict O’Beng’s well observed “Walking in fog” projet type

Your Justification

This document will get more readership than any other that tried to compete so it really really really must say somethings that are good value and it must say them well – you owe us all a duty of care that to be exercised requires a significant lift in your results so far

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised as follows:: Unlike projects that are characterized as unique and temporary, programs are often large, complex, lengthy, and tend to be less well defined. This section discusses two characteristics that distinguish programs from projects.

OriginalText

718 • Relatedness. A primary consideration that differentiates programs and portfolios

Your Recommendation

Replace to shorten the guidance with “in a program the work included is interdependant such that the intended outcome is dependant on all elements in the scope of teh program. In a Portfolio the work included is related in any way the portfolio owner chooses. Typical groupings are work is resourced by the same resource pool, work delivers to the same client, work is conducted in teh same accounting period. Other groupings are valid – eg conducted in the same geography.

Your Justification

Currently a long way to say not much – bloated standards are worse than slim standards that say as much

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised as follows: In a program, the work included is interdependent such that the intended outcome is dependent on delivery of all elements in the scope of the program. In a portfolio, the work included is related in any way the portfolio owner chooses. Typical portfolio groupings of work include efforts staffed from the same resource pool, work delivered to the same client, or work is conducted in the same accounting period. Other groupings are also valid, for example, work performed within the same geography.

OriginalText

733 the other hand, do not abide by rigid or planned time constraints. The various initiatives

Your Recommendation

Revise to remove teh errors Portfolios divide time by accounting cycles – which are much more rigid than most project event times – but are otherwise ‘endless’ while programs deivide time as dictated by the external pressures of the market place (which includes financial reporting cycles, global fashions, local weather patterns and more) and internal cycles and events driven by project milestones and people’s political desires and constraints

Your Justification

As written this section misrepresents reality

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. In response to your comment and those of other reviewers we have modified the sentence to read as follows: Portfolios, on the other hand, while being reviewed on a regular basis for decision-making purposes, are not expected to be constrained to “end” on a specific date.

OriginalText

734 and work elements defined within portfolios do not directly relate to one another and do

735 not rely on each other to achieve objectives. In portfolios, the organization’s business

Your Recommendation

change ‘objectives’ to ‘benefits’

Your Justification

To deliver an improvement in the global state of the art requires setting the right mindset and mixing that with the will to act. When you write ‘objective’ rather than ‘benefit’ your words have a tiny bit different impact on your readers thinking. Multiply this my millions of conversations and actions and your small actions have huge effect please lets get this guidance right Change is entered into for one of only 2 reasons: involuntarily to protect what we had and voluntarily to gain what we don’t have – it is all about benefits that motivate the genes or memes in our societies.

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted

Our justification:

OriginalText

742 (projects, subprograms, and activities) that are related in some way and collectively

Your Recommendation

Define “activities”

Your Justification

Writing that lists “activities” without definintion does not provide standardised guidance as to what roles, duties, skills (etc) are being envisaged – EG do activities mean the management of the projects in the portfolio? If so an activity might be “tailor the portfolio governance authorities’s view of how to handle risk to suit the stakeholders and nature of work within a specific program’

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: “Programs include work(projects, subprograms, and other work) that are related in some way and collectively contribute to the achievement of the program’s outcomes and intended benefits.”

OriginalText

744 also include the concept of time and incorporate schedules through which specific

Your Recommendation

Reword to align with reality

Your Justification

Every process exists in time, every human endeavor percieves time, some endeavors handle its passage in equal sized units (sized based on the passage of the sun and the moon(c)) while others mark time by events such as the delivery of project outputs

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: “Portfolios do not require the work within the portfolio to be related and are managed in an on-going fashion as initiatives (programs and projects) are introduced to the portfolio and are subsequently completed.”

OriginalText

748 manage a collection of investments and work that are important to the achievement of the

Your Recommendation

YES ! Keep ‘investment’ in mind, go back to line 1 of the document and filter every sentiment by “how is the investment of the bill-payer affected, what behaviour may be present, is desirable, how is the supplier affcted, how will & how should their staff act, what form of contract binds bill-payer and subject matter expert – is it ‘of employment’ or ‘for services’

Your Justification

The current words can be improved by suffusing the writing with the sentiment of line-748

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. No change was made to the text in response to this comment. Recommended change does not provide sufficient improvement in the existing text to warrant the change. Reflects a view of only one particular type of program. Investment management is addressed by the Standard for Portfolio Management through which initiatives (programs and projects) are approved and investment (resources) are allocated.

OriginalText

754 organization performs numerous portfolio reviews to evaluate the value generated from each

755 of the projects, programs, and sub initiatives within the portfolio. As the business

Your Recommendation

You must add business as usual as a portfolio element – it is the benefit generating operations taht provide the revenue to support cost-of-capital that is the basis of all investment decisions. Evaluation of the portfolio is always “do we have the capacity to execute the change and what will the future state of the world be after we have made the change”

Your Justification

Your advise is restricted to just the suppliers view of change not teh customer’s view of constancy – we need advise the removes the blinkers

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: During this planning effort, an organization conducts continuous portfolio reviews to evaluate the value generated from the projects, programs, and operational work (business-as-usual) within the portfolio.

OriginalText

756 climate changes, organizations repeatedly evaluate the work of the organization through

757 portfolio reviews, reinforcing components of the portfolio that are in alignment and are

758 achieving intended benefits and organizational objectives while deemphasizing or

759 decommissioning initiatives that are not. New initiatives that have potential for

760 contributing to the overall forward progress and success of the organization are proposed

761 and analyzed during the portfolio review process and create the starting point for new

762 projects, portfolio components, and programs.

Your Recommendation

ABSOLUTELY – so if this re-evaluation of the portfolio make-up is ongoing, and teh projects deliver outputs that the business take into operational benefits delivery do programs exist other than in the business’ normal operation. If a program is the businesses activity that surrounds a project then what we have is a project owner’s guide to compliment the pmbok which is a project supplier’s guide – it is possible that weve now got decent vision of what guidance is needed

Your Justification

As written the PMI manual set is growing in pages and shrinking in usefulness

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

765 perform as desired and align with organizational strategy and objectives. They are

Your Recommendation

clarify wording: something like “their intent aligns with current strategy and their current performance aligns with intent” ?

Your Justification

What is provided is not currently as precise as the words above

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: During an organization’s portfolio review process, programs are evaluated to ensure that they are performing as expected and remain aligned with the organization’s strategy and objectives.

OriginalText

769 starting point typically occurs when the business plan for the program is accepted,

Your Recommendation

AAAGGGGHHHHH NO NO NO The *start* point HAS TO BE before the idea even has two heads discussing it. It is a very blinkered, “supplier”, “projects are temporary” view point taht could ever concive of something starting when so much work has been done and angst suffered that approval to invest in this idea and not another or use resources in revenue-bau activity or return it to shareholders as dividend. PLUS programs are evolutionary, they track an evolving world so resource allocation is (you should be describing the mechanism by which provisions are made) on a flexible, ongoing, drip-feed basis.

Your Justification

This thinking is just big-project supplier – get teh money allocated and then consume it in fees thinking – that isn’t how an investor wants it Consider this: the ideas of “Agile projects” are program management applied on a scale (timewise) between 1/30 and 1/90 of the scale appropriate to a program

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: A concept may be approved for a limited time with limited funding to develop a business case for further evaluation. The business case is then reviewed during the portfolio review process. When the actual program is approved, funding is formally approved and allocated and a program manager is assigned to the initiative.

OriginalText

769 starting point typically occurs when the business plan for the program is accepted,

Your Recommendation

Your Justification

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. To capture the intent and maintain the spirit of all comments, the paragraph or sentence has been revised as follows: A concept may be approved for a limited time with limited funding to develop a business case for further evaluation. The business case is then reviewed during the portfolio review process. When the actual program is approved, funding is formally approved and allocated and a program manager is assigned to the initiative.

OriginalText

779 A key differentiator between program and project management is the strategic focus of

Your Recommendation

Delete or reword There is not a differentiator here – their may be some small variations in emphasis in the short term

Your Justification

I’m sorry, I’ve been trying not to just dismiss sections but this is bullshit. A project may be a tactical response but every project must align to the organisation’s best interests and programs are just collections of projects with their administrative arrangements (like stakeholder engagement) grouped for economy and efficiency. What you should have observed and then said is programs are involved with organisational strategy for a longer time frame than projects – a program is involved in envisioning teh future and creating the future when pre-requisite elements delivered by projects are available for integration and deployment. You cannot say programs are more strategic than the projects on whose backs they stand (or fall).

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

784 In any given organization, there is typically an initiative evaluation and selection

Your Recommendation

remove teh tautology

Your Justification

The section says “select initiatives” twice if not three times

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised as follows: “A key difference between program and project management is the strategic focus of programs. Programs are designed to align with organizational strategy and ensure organizational benefits are realized. To accomplish this, program managers require strategic visioning and planning skills to align program goals with the long-term goals of the organization.”

OriginalText

797 While project managers lead the work on their components, it is the program manager’s

Your Recommendation

Consider “manage” and “lead” and then rewrite to express what you mean

Your Justification

Management and leadership are distinct behaviours. Managers do things right, leaders do the right things. Do you want project managers in a program leading? This is a profound point that needs care to be properly handled. With so many gross errors like the aggregation of uncertainty mis-described as more uncertain rather than tending to a guassian probability function it may be beyond teh current document to address more important but softer issues ike this one – it depends on your desire to take a fee versus provide vlue as to how you decide the disposition of so importat but subtle and hard a topic

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. Numerous comments were received on this section. It has been revised as follows: “While project managers lead and direct the work on their components, it is the program manager’s responsibility to ensure alignment of the individual plans with the program’s goals and intended benefits in support of the achievement of the organization’s strategy. Refer to Chapter 4 for more information on Program Benefits Management.”

OriginalText

797 While project managers lead the work on their components, it is the program manager’s

Your Recommendation

Consider teh role of project sponsor and programme sponsor and then rewrite this section

Your Justification

Someone or some group invests so takes risk in the hope of a reward. Projects are complex trade-offs between actions from a limited resouce pool that follow a path with many choices between certainty of cost and potetial for reward. Each trade-off is a situational decision and must in the final escalation fall to a single authority (individual or committee) who is ‘sponsor’ or sponsor’s delegated authority. How that works for each project in a program, and the potential for give and take across the program’s constituent projects IS a factor of program definition

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

Our justification: Recommendation rejected due to content already included elsewhere. The committee considered request but felt that the information requested to be added or changed was already represented elsewhere in the document, specifically lines 1521-1523 in the stakeholders section and 2102-2107 in the governance section.

OriginalText

807 Program planning analyzes available information about organizational and business

808 strategies, internal and external influences, program drivers, and the benefits that

809 stakeholders and intended beneficiaries expect to realize. The program is defined in terms

810 of expected outcomes, resources needed, and the complexity for delivering the changes

811 needed to implement new capabilities across the organization.

Your Recommendation

Delete or reword

Your Justification

What you describe here is project planning for projects with reasonable definition of goal and route to it. Program planning is about creating the monitoring, scouting, reconessance and decision making process by which we pick our route fowards based on the journey so far, the currently visible landscape and our group threat/ opportunity perception.

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

810 of expected outcomes, resources needed, and the complexity for delivering the changes

Your Recommendation

NOTE “changes” and apply the philosophy that project equals change and program equals interdependant change through the whole documents. But first consider “change to what”, observe it is the current status quo to arrive at a new status quo, recognise that the change, of itself changes the context so the change will change as it evolves. In projects the degree of change may allow us to consider teh contextual status quo to be equivellent pre- and post- change so not to be anything requireing specific management. In a program we might consider teh impact of change to be sufficient that wider consideration is needed – Some have called this “walking on the trampoline” – see surfing the edge of chaos by pascale, millemann, & goija

Your Justification

We need world class guidance from the dominant distributor of words on this subject

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

813 Initiating a program begins by determining the need for a program by the organization or

Your Recommendation

Reword to proprly describe where a program starts

Your Justification

It starts with an idea, often fragile and in competition with other ideas and calls for attention and resources. By the time it is at the stage in L-814 it is a very well developed idea and possible even a finished delivered change

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

819 roadmap provide the right value based on the environment by which the program will be

Your Recommendation

no, this may apply to project, but if program is a meaningful term then best we can hope for is probably that no impediments can currently be seen

Your Justification

If all you do in this guide is re-express project ideas then we you never improve mankinds ability to handle change and since your position is dominant youll hold back everyone else’s improvement and thaht would be counter to the PMI ethics guide, so unless you can improve the guidance to the point where it is clearly beneficial you must not publish it

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

822

Your Recommendation

add iterative and elaborative nature of the procss to the diagram or delete

Your Justification

as given it is misleading

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted With Modification

OriginalText

829 Organizational strategy is a result of the strategic planning cycle, where the vision and

Your Recommendation

No The cycle is the result Strategy is the result of interaction between genes and memes, available capital (people and money) and context

Your Justification

As writen youve the cause and effect jumbled and teh real important stuff omitted

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

831 their vision will be achieved. The vision is enabled by the mission that directs the

Your Recommendation

Delete from “the vision is enabled…” to end of scentence

Your Justification

These words have no meaning by the time one reaches the end of teh sentence

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted

Our justification:

OriginalText

833 initiatives that are influenced by market dynamics, customer and partner requests,

Your Recommendation

Reword to express the real significant determinants and drivers

Your Justification

Yes the market drives change but teh biggest determinants of human reaction to dynamics in he context are: Group think, Regret or resistatnce to change, ability to absorb concurrent changes, capital (people’s skills, will. shared behaviour pattrens and money) and revenue to sevice payroll, dividend and interest costs-of-capital

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

835 may be grouped into portfolios to be executed during a predetermined period. In addition

Your Recommendation

No, reword – they are a portfolio and may be grouped into programs and portfolios

Your Justification

wrong or at least incomplete as written

Our vote on your recommendation: Rejected

OriginalText

838 portfolio management to the organizational strategy is to establish a balanced,

839 operational plan that will help the organization achieve its goals and to balance the use

840 of resources to maximize value in executing programs, projects, and other operational

841 activities.

Your Recommendation

YES, YES, YES Reflect this thinkingthrough the rest of the document

Your Justification

portfolios are all about “what is attractive and what can we afford and how do we sequence for a balance or dynamic equilibtium that maximises organisational and societal stakeholder benefit”

Our vote on your recommendation: Accepted

Our justification: Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback on the exposure draft for the Standard for Program Management – Third Edition. And for your positive comments.

Tags: Exposure draft, PMI, Program management, Review

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