Now that PRINCE2 is running out of steam they are pushing MSP instead. “Managing Successful Programmes”.
Programme Management is the new Project Management. Oh yes, project management is old hat, nowadays you’ve got to be doing Programme Management if you’re going to be important.
As far as I can tell, Programme Management is jsut running a group of projects, so it’s still only project management really. A Gantt chart for each of your projects and you’re all set.
The only thing to look out for is resource planning – one project can interfere with another by using its resources, so you do need a Gantt of Gantts.
I guess you also need to think about which projects depend on which, but that’s just a post-it note dependency diagram like you use for planning any project,
So basically I think Programme Management is much the same as project management really. The larger tasks in a project have smaller tasks within them – I would recommend a sub-Gantt for each of the larger tasks to avoid the problem of ‘partial colouring’ – and for large projects (any containing more than about 30 tasks) I’d recommend a high level plan with sub-projects within it, otherwise the Gantt gets too unwieldy –
so it’s just the logical next step up to extend that whole idea up a level, and have all your projects on a Gantt of Gantts.
I hope this helps!
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