Program Management-as-a-Service 2.0

By: William (Bill) Thomas, Senior Program Manager at EMC

Business success is not measured by a consulting company’s ability to conceive a great idea, but rather by their ability to put it into action.

It is time to adjust our Program Management structure and our go to market strategies to allow for what our customers are really asking for:

  • don’t sell something to me, do something for me,

  • Help me with my outcomes,

  • be involved not just at the beginning of the project, but stay engaged and earn my business for life.

Whether managing an array farm upgrading to a Premium Support Services integration program or implementing a strategic technology Data Center Migration, many clients are looking to product consulting companies to turn a winning strategy into a successful reality.

There is an opportunity where Program Management can add considerable value where we don’t necessarily do today. We help companies drive business transformation by providing industry-leading program management consulting services; we bring methods and tools, we bring resources on demand, we bring governance. We do this for very large corporations where there are many projects that can be stitched together in order to afford the over-riding tax required to support this financial encumbrance called PMO.

Program Management as a PMO is big, it brings great value, but in the beginning it’s a lot like trying to eat an elephant. It really must be taken in small bites; not only to a client, but to our own sales teams – value must be proven. What better way than to break it up into small, discrete services that can be eaten one bite at a time, just like that huge elephant – Program Management-as-a- service is launched.

We have as a practice group, delivered some of the largest, highest profile and most effective transformation programs in corporate history.

You want to begin to rely on us to help you turn a well-crafted strategy into a well-executed plan for today and for whatever the next instantiation of business produced.

Here are a few ideas where Program Management-as-a- service might fit:

Program Rescue or Get-to-Green

These quick and highly intense, very structured and time-critical remedial actioning interviews and planning sessions are mapped out to turnaround the expected outcome of a failing program.

Complex Program Delivery

Project kick-off: alignment of a new or existing project against the enterprise strategy to ensure maximum return on portfolio investment matched-up with quarterly QA assessments and read-out level readjustments.

Delivery Health-check or QA

Like a rescue program, this rapid and possibly ongoing assessment service baselines the underlying health of a specific portfolio and the critical actions needed to achieve the target benefits. Quarterly re-checks are common.

Enterprise Portfolio Management

Short term audit or creating of a centralized management of processes, methods, and technologies used by project managers and project management offices (PMOs) to analyze and collectively manage current or proposed projects based on corporate key characteristics.

Business Transformation using Enterprise Architecture Framework Creation

Apply best practices, professional program management rigor with TOGAF/Zachman EA to ensure business strategic objectives are realized while insuring TCO does not exceed business case modeling. The EA component of this Program Management-as-a-Service begins the introductory processes required in order to build a longer-term approach for designing, planning, implementing, and governing an enterprise information technology architecture.

IT Transition Management

Transition management is a model of environmental governance which seeks to guide the steady, continuous process of transformation of tech-political landscapes, financial-technical practices and “the structural character of an IT practice” from one equilibrium to another. In its application, program management transition management seeks to swiftly, with the boundary of a time commitment, steer the outcome of change to lessen any inherent uncertainty, produce desirable outcomes and enhance resilience during the transformation of newly adopted business-technical norms.

This is primarily achieved by engaging, via a prepared practice, a wide range of stakeholders over the multiple levels to create shared visions and goals which are then tested for practicality through the use of experimentation, learning and adaptation at the niche level.

We will begin to delivery small distinct opportunities for clients and sales to begin to see the value of program management. Program Managers drive business transformation and portfolio success by providing industry-leading program management consulting services; we bring methods and tools, we bring resources on demand, we bring governance – we bring portfolio success one step at a time.

We want to begin to help companies envisions a next-generation tech industry where suppliers play an active, ongoing role in helping business customers achieve unparalleled value from their technology investments.