The 'programme manager' analogy

..... that I promised when I was in a nark the other night.

(and I am not a PM by the way)

back in May, I was on a project of a reasonable size - all was going well, mostly down to the expertise of the Programme Manager we had, who was managing an "awkward" customer very well. he was taken off us by my employer, and as a reward for his effort, was assigned to a new project, with a major Global company that was a big win for us. Remember, this was May, round about the time the footie season was ending.

I expressed an interest at being involved.

He was given the summer to get everything in place. Everything was going to kick off in earnest mid-August. He had to manage multiple technical workstreams and appoint the right personnel in the right areas. Luckily, he picked me - I started there last Monday. There are about 40 people form our company involved and it is worth many hundreds of thousands of ££££ to us.

The PM has worked his socks off all summer. We have recruited where we were short to avoid going out to the contractor market. The team looks good. All my tasks have been made clear to me, and I know where my project sits in the wider scheme of things. I am going to be there a few months - the whole programme is little short of a year.

Enough of the boring facts.

if he'd not got the right teams in place, and the right individuals, people would have asked "WHAT THE F3CK HAVE YOU DONE ALL SUMMER?". If he'd been still looking through CVs and asking around, he'd be getting a right slating. If that had meant a need to get contractors in (loanees ?) then any continuity / loyalty would have been questioned, as would why we are paying over the odds for outsiders when he could have easily identified decent permies.

It's looking good so far. I know my role, everything has been thought out and I am already getting the feeling its going to be a fruitful project (season ?).

What have BFC done all summer ? Not saying they have been sat on their ar5e5 but chuff me my are we still building a team 3 weeks into the season, still identifying personnel, still messing around with formations, developing other teams personnel and giving them game time and haven't got a real feeling as to whether the season (project ?) has any chance of looking like a decent one or not ! !

If we have a plan, we have a strange way of showing it. We were nowhere near ready for the start of this season.

 

Good Read

 

Again.

 

The project board is ultimately responsible for a project. A PM can only take decisions and direction from the board (trust me I AM a PM).

A pm also has the responsibility for managing risk (to a point) which ultimately again the board will sanction tolerance for the PM to work under or allocate someone to manage said risk.

A PM only monitors and assigns work to others under his powers.

So. Good analogy which I sure you can see where this points.

However if the PM identified who he needs to have the project successful he would also have back up plans in place.

So depending on the ultimate role he is assigned to deliver (and it's outcomes) we can't point fingers at him unless it is clear he has that power to make them decisions.

And the fact that our manager at bfc has had his role changed in terms of now being head coach (likely adding to the confusion of fans in terms of roles and responsibilities) then we can only assume that the project so far is down to the project board.

 

cheers for the insight Nez.

Not sure where the blame lay ......... apologies if it looked like I was blaming LJ direct, the blame IMHO lay with "whoever is the man-with-the-plan" because in my opinion it has failed as a deliverable.

There just seems so many parallels between my current project and the football team I support and love

My employer <---> Barnsley FC
Programme Manager <---> BFC "man with a plan"
Project Managers <---> LJ and other department heads at BFC
Me and the other techies / resources <---> the playing squad
Contractors <---> loanees
Competitors <---> other clubs

 

Not getting at you mate. But your right.

Who ever is the ultimate responsibility takes the flack. But where it gets wooly is where roles and responsibilities are defined. These are defined in a communications strategy mostly and or the project PID.

So unless we know who has what responsibility assigned we are just guessing.

But it's a good way to think about it definately.

Lots of parallels and comparisons can be made. And it has actually gave me food for thought with out club on this.

But the real question to ask is...

What's the aim of our football club (project or programme)

is that actually defined in a mandate anywhere....

If not. We don't have a project defined to deliver....

There probably is and I'm being a bit pedantic over it. But I don't recall an actual definition of where we want to be in 2, 3 or 10 years time. If we have I've missed it