Organisation Structure of Your Programme

Key roles, responsibilities and interfaces

It is the organisation structure and management of a programme that addresses the big question:

"How am I going to manage all this so that it happens and I succeed?"

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There are three primary management roles:

(1) Programme Director - Overall leadership and ultimate accountability for the Programme

(2) Programme Manager - Responsibility for day-to-day management of the Programme, its risks, issues, conflicts, priorities, communications, and ensuring delivery of the new capabilities.

(3) Business Change Manager - Responsibility for realising the benefits through the integration of the new capabilities into the business operations.

Programme Director

The Programme Director is typically appointed from within the Sponsoring Group [the group of directors and/or senior managers who are directed involved in the change initiative], and will therefore be in a position to regularly consult with and seek input from other members at a similar level within the organisation structure.

He/she will have overall responsibility, leadership and authority for the Programme and may well only be involved part-time.

Alternatively, it may be necessary to establish a Programme Board in situations where a single Programme Director cannot be sufficiently empowered. The Programme Board members will then collectively take on the role of Programme Director.

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The Programme Director owns the programme and therefore is ultimately personally accountable for the success of the Programme.

So this is not simply a titular role, the individual appointed must be empowered to direct the Programme effectively - capable of doing so - and seen to be doing so.

The Programme Director is ultimately responsible for enabling the organisation to exploit the new environment, meeting the new business needs and delivering new levels of performance, benefit, service delivery, value or market share, as appropriate to your particular Programme.

Programme Manager

There is a fundamental difference between the delivery of a new capability and actually realising measurable benefits as a result of implementing that capability.

This difference is reflected in the complementary roles of Programme Manager and Business Change Manager.

In the organisation structure the Programme Manager is responsible for delivering the capability; the Business Change Manager is responsible for realising the resultant benefits.

Individuals appointed to each role must be able to work well together, in close partnership and as an effective team, in order to fully understand and exploit the opportunities for change.

The role of Programme Manager is responsible for delivering the new capability through the management of the programmes portfolio of projects, on behalf of the Programme Director.

The Programme Manager focuses on monitoring inter-dependencies between projects and changes within the Project Portfolio [once projects become established] and also reassesses whether or not projects continue to meet the Programme’s objectives.

Business Change Manager

The Business Change Manager, is typically appointed from existing operational management, and is someone who knows the business well and who understands and is effective within the organisation structure, cultures and politics of the organisation.

The Business Change Manager role represents the Sponsoring Group's interests in the final outcome of the Programme, in terms of measured improvements in business performance.