School of Information Systems

Program and Project Management

10 Mar 2022

For an organization to create optimal value from its projects, there must be a clear link between the outputs created by the projects and the requirements of the organization’s business strategy. This means that organizations that have a structure in place for aligning the project deliverables with their organizational goals will be better placed to realize their projects, and achieve the value defined by their business strategies. Program management is the coordinated management of interdependent projects over a finite period of time in order to achieve a set of business goals. Project management involves the planning and organization of a company’s resources to move a specific task, event, or duty towards completion. The difference is program management is focused on maximizing the benefits realized by the organization (strategically focused), while project management is focused on creating a deliverable as efficiently as possible (tactically focused).

Both Program and Project management must have a manager. A program manager articulates a program’s strategy and objectives and assesses how it will impact a business. The program manager’s role is to keep all projects moving in the same direction to achieve the business goals outlined in the business case. Project managers oversee the operations of individual projects within programs. The project manager’s role is more tactical than the program manager, such as to coordinate time, budget, and resources to complete work within program guidelines, and report to the program manager on progress and any changes made to the initial project plan. Project and program managers should work together closely during an implementation.

The implementation of an ERP will require several different project teams over the course of several months or years to manage business goals. To ensures that project teams work well together and address issues in a timely, open, and efficient manner, an organization need a Project Management Office (PMO). A PMO have some responsibilities to Define the nature and scope of the project to meet the business needs, planning and design project management plan, deliver the physical project deliverables to the customers, monitoring and controlling potential problems in the project and solve them early on, and close the project and create a project closure report. To be successful, the PMO must manage the risks involved in a project implementation. Success or failure of a project often rests with the skills and abilities of the PMO, project staff continuity, and a well-defined communications process.

There are some critical success factors that PMO must identify/monitor such as Decision-Making Process, a well-defined decision-making process will minimize a number of issues related to scope, efficiency, and productivity throughout the project implementation cycle. Project Scope, a scope defines what needs to be delivered by the project, and a changing scope means the project will have difficulty in achieving project goals. Teamwork, project teams are assembled by bringing together staff from the existing organization, new hires, and possible external consultants and they need to work together for a common goal. Change Management, it’s up to the project manager to communicate the importance and significance of the project to the entire organization, top to bottom, through effective communication and training. Implementation Team and Executive Team, the program manager and project manager are critical to a successful ERP implementation, there are three options in choosing an implementation team: the internal IT organization, consulting organizations, and the package software vendors. Executive management support and commitment throughout the project are also essential.

A lot of bright ideas will have to be sacrificed to keep the project on track. Adding features late in the process is known as scope creep, and it’s one way to ruin a project. One of the most important steps in preventing scope creep is educating a teams to the dangers. This is a matter of persuasion to help people in team understand why it is so important to keep- from adding even “minor” features to the project once you’ve finalized your features list, because it can ruin an ERP implementation if they’re added at the wrong way at the wrong time. This is a little hard to understand intuitively since the benefits of more features are obvious but the cost to the project schedule and budget aren’t. That’s why teams must know the difference between essential and non-essential changes from the cost-benefit ratio. Essential changes are worth the time, effort and damage to the schedule, non-essential changes aren’t. Determining this requires putting each proposed change under a microscope using a consistent process to determine if it is worth it. Some people on the team will insist that their particular feature is so important it has to be added, even if it wasn’t in the original design document. This is another place where a change control process is useful. By making the advocates justify their proposed changes on a strict cost-benefit basis you can eliminate many bright ideas with the minimum of argument. the cost-benefit ratio of changes will slide as the implementation increases. Something that might have been cost-effective in the beginning may not be worth doing later in the process when the cost of making changes is higher. A White Paper, consists of a description of the issue or new functionality, including the options available with advantages and disadvantages. If a key element of the functionality does not work well during this process, there may be a need to make changes to the original scope.

The difference between Module Experts and Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). Module Experts Analyze requirements and convert them into solutions within the ERP system, provide a direction and application knowledge with respect to business process design, configuration, testing, training, and implementation. Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) provide coordination and facilitation of communications between the project team and the organization. Also provide leadership and functional expertise in support of the implementation with specific knowledge in one or more business processes. In the end Project leadership and the skills, knowledge and abilities of program and project managers are important ingredient to the success of an ERP implementation.

References :

Why You Should Avoid “Scope Creep” in Your ERP Implementation | Toolbox Tech

Ardan Putranta Mahardhika, Marisa Karsen