The Handbook of Program Management: How to Facilitate Project Success with Optimal Program Management

If you are a program manager, or thinking of becoming one, you will want this book. Dr. Brown shares his wisdom on the program management without overburdening you with methodology. In reading the book, I often felt like I was having a discussion about program management with a knowledgeable and experienced colleague. Dr. Brown clearly knows what he is talking about. His time at NASA seems to have been a large influence on his perspective of programs. There is probably no better place to learn and experience a program management culture. Dr. Brown seeds the book with "scenarios" from his extensive experience to tie a real life event to the topic under discussion. A couple of things I really liked about the book: * Dr. Brown is very well-read, and not just on program management topics. He sites authors such as Dale Carnage and Robert Cialdini. He understands the broad set of skills that are needed by a program manager, and he also consistently returns to the importance of people. He has a lot of charts and "tips", but the management of the people is always in the forefront. * The book is very well laid out - 10 chapters covering the fundamentals. Each chapter contains advice, tips, and useful tools. Dr. Brown does not stress the tools, rather he uses them as examples or methods of achieving the goals. In the risk chapter he has an example of a 5x5 risk matrix, but goes on to say that a 3x3 or 4x4 will work just as well. He stresses that important point is to perform the risk analysis and management, not get caught up in the details of the tools. * There are several quotes that really hit home. Early in the book he talks about program management being the place where "operations and project management collide." EXACTLY - we've all faced the challenge of trying to explain that a program is not a project to the project managers, and trying to convince operations that it's not a department. * Another favorite that I will freely steal is "kill what's ugly while it's young" - AMEN!!! This brings to mind the practice of Spartans to take their "ugly" children out into the wilderness - well maybe not exactly the same thing, but I've seen a few ugly projects that never should have been allowed to grow. So - great book - it is on my shelf, now dog eared and full of highlights. It will make me a better program manager, and I know it will help anyone else who reads it.

I can tell when I like a PM book after I'm done with it, and I don't mean from a kinesthetic standpoint, I mean from a physical standpoint. When a Project (or in this case, Program) Management book gets to me, it has dog-eared corners, drawings, notes, and yellow highlighter marker all over it. And this book is one of those that has a whole mess of bent corners, drawings (one of which I actually will share with you), and it caused the demise of my trusty yellow marker. May it rest in peace. Dr. James T. Brown has written the book to which I refer, "The Handbook of Program Management". As you can tell, I like the book even though I disagree with Dr. Brown on some points. One of those points is the title. First: the word "Handbook". This book was better than a handbook, at least how I think of handbooks. It read very well (unlike my stereotype of a handbook which a choppy, reference guide) and was full of "gems" from real example projects and programs. The other word is "Program". While it's of course true that the book focuses on Program Management, my issue is that it is an excellent book for Project Managers, as well. This is covered in the subtitle, "How to facilitate project success with optimal program management". I know it's long, but perhaps that - or some shorter version of it, like "Project Success through Optimal Program Management" - should have been the title! I guess I just don't want to see Project Managers miss out on the good things in this book - and this is one of the reasons I am blogging about it on a Project Management post. I really liked the way in which Dr. Brown distinguished project and program management. For example, there is this: Typically, the project manager is and should be more delivery and execution focused whereas the program manager has to also be concerned with the overall health and effectiveness of the program over the long term. When he talked about the way that program manager and project manager view the projects they oversee, it actually inspired me to create a figure for the book: Program managers see the projects in their context, where as project mangers may not necessarily see this - they instead see each as an independent entity. In fact, I personally think the more effective, enterprise-oriented project managers do take on this program view. Which is why I think this is an important book for project managers, not just program managers. But here also is one other area where I found myself disagreeing with the author. He says that "Project management offices that establish policy as a primary function should be scaled down or phased out when that policy is mature. ". I agree that the push to follow the policies should be phased out, but not necessarily the whole PMO, and that the phase-out doesn't begin when the policy is mature, but rather when the project managers understand it, are following it, and it is reaping the benefits it intended. It's a matter of PM Maturity, which is always a

It is obvious to me that the author spent a lot of time thinking about this book before he started writing it. I bought this book to use as a reference while studying for the PgMP exam and found it to be very helpful for providing another perspective beyond the PMI standard and the exam preparation book that I bought. For me, the ordering of topics is very logical and the writing is very clear. Where examples are necessary, examples are provided. Where topics are a bit more obscure, Mr. Brown takes the time to provide explanations to help you understand. I really can't find any major faults with this book.

This book was published in 2008, so the information in it reflects the current state of program management. In his forward, Dr. Brown states that his book will provide "a framework of structured, organized common sense". He observes that it requires "leadership and integrity to repeatedly execute successfully". He then goes on to provide examples of project characteristics that indicate if there are problems with an organizations program environment. The examples he provides are both clear to understand and described in a way to understand the root issue. He then goes on to provide insight into attributes of an effective program manager, stakeholder management, program process strategy, program execution, communication and risk management. His book is written clearly, with practical examples and with actionable recommendations. Now that project management methodologies have reached a level of understanding and maturity to provide companies with project managers that are highly effective, the focus needs to shift to the world of program management. Managing portfolios of projects across multiple business lines is extremely challenging and the processes to support these efforts are just emerging. This book is an excellent starting point to benefit from Dr. Brown's research and incorporate some new best practices into your Program management processes.

I've read the book from cover to cover and it's a excellent pragmatic book that explains how to manage both small and large programs. I can easily see myself using this as a reference for many years to come especially when I find myself trying to figure out how to handle one of the many of situations the author describes in his book. The chapter on attributes of an effective Program Manager was really helpful to me as I was in the process of assigning one of my staff as a Program Manager. When I read the simple to understand attributes it really helped me to focus in on who on my staff could do the role. Additionally, it was an excellent guide for my selected Program Manager to use to understand what my expectations of him was. The chapter that covered stakeholder management was another excellent chapter that I have sense asked all of my Program AND Project managers to read. I did this because it's an excellent chapter on helping the Program and Project Managers to understand what stakeholders REALLY expect of them. Additionally he goes over the types of stakeholders that you can run into and simple yet effective methods to work effective with them. For example he talks about the meddling stakeholder which all Program and Project managers run into. Here he guides you though why they might be meddling, such as they recently got burned by a prior project or there is a distrust with the organization. In these situations he recommends on involving them through many tasks and details. They want to meddle great jump in the mud, roll up your sleeves and help, otherwise step back and let those truly involved in the project get the work done while properly informing all stakeholders. Over all this book is a really good and easy read. I expect to be referencing for many years to come!