Hello and welcome to the fourth and last module of the IT Foundations course. And this is the first lesson in module four and we are going to be talking about program management. So program management is kind of similar to project management, but as you all probably know, many times there are many projects going.
And if the projects are in kind of the same category as one another, then it is useful to have a program manager to manage all of those programs that lie within the same category at the same time. So a program defined is a group of related projects managed in a coordinated manner, like NIS. because, well, Network and Systems Administration, the first year is one project and then NIS is kind of the second year, but it's defined as two projects.
So I would be the project manager for those two programs. Did I say project management now? Well, there you go. Program manager.
for those two programs. So we're going to have a look at five major aspects of program management, namely program planning, program infrastructure, program financial management, program management, and program governance. Now remember, it's not intended for you guys to be experts in program management, but you do need to have some overview of what these things are. So looking at program governance to start at the bottom of that list is to define the roles and the responsibilities within the project, within the program, and therefore providing oversight and oversight of the entire program.
It also creates a structure and practices to guide the program. It encompasses the relationship between the program and the business direction. and also between the different projects within the program of course.
It includes decision-making roles and responsibilities in executing the actual program and it does require a somewhat complex governing structure. So within program management there are some responsibilities that a project manager has and And some of these responsibilities might be distributed to people at three different levels. So the higher the level, of course, the more general the responsibilities.
So at the top there, you've got the program sponsor and the steering committee. For example, in the case of NIS, that would be Norov or the board of Norov. That is the program sponsor and the steering committee.
committee. Program managers are the second level to make sure that specific outcomes are reached, so that would be me, the program manager, making sure that all the outcomes within the NIS program are reached both when it comes to putting in the different subjects, defining the study plan, the learning outcomes, and well, having some sort of responsibility when it comes to marketing, not direct marketing, but providing the tools for the marketing department and the tutor department or those who provide information to students with the correct information about the program. And then you have the bottom level, the project managers assigned to different projects within the program.
And in our case, we call those course leaders because each course is seen as a project within the program. So we have course leads. And for this particular course, the ITF course, I have that role as well.
So I am both the project manager or course lead for the ITF course. and I'm also the program manager for the entire program so I can slap my own wrist if I'm not doing a good job. But those are the levels.
When it comes to program financial management, that is a tricky bit. As you can read about that in the newspapers, almost on a daily basis, that somebody somewhere have said, yeah, we'll do that job for X amount of money. And then it kind of cracks.
They spent a lot more money than they said they would. And therefore, the program costs are always higher than the project costs, because each of the projects will cost a specific amount of money. But then when you run several projects within the program, that's, of course, going to cost more. So the financial aspect of a program includes conforming to internal and or external policy. So if the company has some sort of...
rules and policies to follow, then you need to follow that. It's also about expenditure reporting. So you need to not just spend money east, left and right, left and center, but you have to report what you spend, why you spend it and how you spend it.
Chief Financial Officer is generally involved in those decisions. and in many cases a budget administrator will be assigned depending on how large the program and the projects within the program are. Regardless of the size of the program you should always do a cost analysis at the beginning of a program or a startup of a program.
Because even if businesses do say one sum of money, money and then they end up spending a whole different sum of money. You should still do a cost analysis. For example, looking at Finn, this was a while ago.
You probably cannot find this car right now but it's a nice car, got a nice color to it. It's a Ford Mustang and it says total price. 599800 Norwegian kroner. So do we think that is really the total price? Well, you'd probably get the car for that amount of money, but then you're going to have to register it.
Otherwise you can't drive it. You're going to have to have some sort of insurance. Otherwise you can't register it.
You need to place it somewhere in some sort of garage or parking. Parking is cheaper, but for this car, garage, definitely. If you use the car, you're going to have to do service on it, you have to put fuel on it, and you have to pay road tolls and stuff, depending on where you drive, of course. But these are all costs that come along with the car. So even if you say total price, 599,000 something, no, you need to do cost analysis.
Is that really the total price? Program infrastructure is used to describe any roles or tools or practices that you put together in order to provide the services and support needed for the program. It's important to have a really good plan in place because this also relates to the cost analysis.
You're going to need some sort of technology, you're going to need some tools and also it's worth considering how the infrastructure will be used once the program has ended. Look at the Olympics, for example. Lillehammer would never, ever have been able to get approval from the Norwegian government to apply as a host for the Olympic Games if it wasn't for the very, very, very accurate and good planning with regards to money.
and the infrastructure because they said it's going to cost this amount of money to build the ice rink or whatever you call it. But then you can use this for years and years and years to come. And so how the infrastructure, how the tools and how the things surrounding the program will be used after the actual program has ended. is also very important. Program planning.
It's like with any planning, you should do well-planned things and you should plan for, well, we'll get to that later on. You also need to plan for failures. So that's risk management.
But anyway, program planning, identify individual components within each project, estimate and allocate the resources needed to deliver. And remember, resources needed isn't just money, right? It's... time, it's personnel, because you need to have somebody in place to do things.
And it's all the necessary tools that these personnel needs. So if you say that the project is to develop a course within an educational program, you need people to develop the course. Those people need things to work on, so they're going to need computers.
They're not only going to need computers, they're also going to need desks and chairs and things to use in both their planning and their development. So there's a lot of resources that needs to be involved and allocated here and to be able to identify connections between between projects within the program and also identify connections between the resources within each project is also essential to the program planning. You also need to integrate plan with other projects, as mentioned in the program, and managing and adjust inter-project dependencies. For example, if you have allocated two people to work on the development of logos and identity, for example, you need also to allocate computers for those two.
Because if the persons come first and then the computers come two weeks later, these two persons are going to sit between their thumbs for two weeks. which is very very costly and not very good planning. Assessing the cost of a program and project within the program that is also a major part of program planning.