Program Management

Unique and adaptable approach to program management, offering key insights needed for professionals and business leaders to drive strategic change

Program Management links business purpose, strategy, program stakeholders, benefits realization, and transformative change-making to provide a uniquely integrated view and use of program management, offering practicing initiative leaders the skills and mindset shifts needed to effectively communicate and champion programs to stakeholders.

The text includes key insights into strategy execution excellence and designing risk-based governance strategies that empower a learning culture within the PMO and across the business, guidance that is customizable to the nature of strategic initiatives and change efforts at the individual and organizational level, and customization that is driven by the emphasis on the potential use of programs and projects as learning labs for different levels of complexity, organizational maturity, and diverse business contexts.

Written by a highly qualified author with more than 30 years of experience in the field, Program Management covers critical topics such as:

• Origin of programs, program management definitions and concepts, the role of program manager vs. project manager, and the importance of value focus across the program life cycle.
• How leaders need to be agile, navigate political waters, manage incredible complexity, and align diverse stakeholders.
• Envisioning a Program Roadmap that fits context and inspires commitment to continuously achieving value.
• The culture for change making and the attributes for a healthy “change culture” including the future Power Skills. Also addressing the value proposition of program professionals in the future.
• Impact of digitalization and Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the future of programs.
• Creating the value-driven way of working and developing the value mindset coupled with the role of benefits management in programs and projects.
• The PMO as the learning engine for the enterprise and the changing role of the program offices.
• Becoming a Change Scientist, the maturing of value and strategic metrics in programs, and how to achieve the right metrics design and mix.

For program and project managers, practitioners, PMO leaders, students in project and program management courses, and those studying for project and program management certifications, Program Management is an essential mindset, skillset, and toolset for executing a strategic plan and providing synergy, consistency in managing change, and a greater focus on achieving what matters to customers and stakeholders.

Table of Contents

Section I: Governing with Excellence and Achieving Change

Chapter 1 Connecting to Purpose and Achieving Change

Chapter 2 Creating Focus

Chapter 3 Driving Integration

Section II: Applying Power Skills and Digital Enablers to Create Continual Change

Chapter 4 Change Making

Chapter 5 Effective Engaging

Chapter 6 Power Skills

Chapter 7 Digitized Future

Section Ill: The Program Management Office (PMO) - The Strategy Execution Arm

Chapter 8 Value-Driven Programs and Hybrid Work

Chapter 9 Risk-Based Governance

Chapter 10 The Learning Engine

Section IV: Organizational Change Management Framework - Transforming Strategy Execution to Realize Program Value

Chapter 11 Change Culture

Chapter 12 Sustaining Benefits

Chapter 13 Change Scientists

Chapter 14 Adaptable Roadmaps

Section V: The Path Forward

About the Author

Al Zeitoun, Ph.D., PgMP, PMP, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, DASM (Bethesda, MD), is a PMI Fellow and has over 30 years of global experiences in program and project management and strategic change, leading operational excellence for large corporations. Over the years he played key leadership roles that contributed to strategy execution excellence results across industries. His transformative ways of working and focus on implementing configurable program and project management principles have directly influenced practitioners and learners across the globe.

Dr. Zeitoun built the internal organizational capabilities to support strategic operations and cultural readiness for complex change programs and digital transformations worldwide. He is a co-author of the future of organizational excellence textbook, Project Management Next Generation: The Pillars for Organizational Excellence, contributes to multiple publications such as the consistent articles in the Project Management World Journal, and enjoys delivering keynotes on various leadership, innovation cultures, and organizational excellence related topics.