Program Management Overview

A Program is a collection of Projects that are related to one another and often managed and coordinated as a group.

The above definition itself explains the concept of Program Management too. Program Management, however, can be defined as the collective management of Projects that are meant to accomplish a common business goal.

Say an organization’s Portfolio has multiple projects running at the same time. Many of these projects are independent, having distinct business objectives, while a few projects could be similar in terms of business objectives or any other attribute. These dependent or related projects require coordinated management and thus comes Program or Program Management into action. It works as an umbrella for all related Projects and provides the necessary management arrangements.

Please note the above definition does not suggest that we use a Program only to group the existing Projects. Depending on the business requirement, a Portfolio or Program manager can create a Program and later create Projects within it to achieve the goal.

As explained in the Root Objects Overview, in the hierarchy, Programs come between the Portfolio and Projects (not mandatorily always). Thus has many similarities with Portfolio. Similar to Portfolio, a Program is a collection of Projects. But unlike Portfolio, which contains independent Programs and Projects, a Program is often comprised of dependent or related Projects.

Besides, a Program allows the creation of ideas, demands, and requirements on the Program level. These are different from the ones we create under Portfolio and thus can be managed by a Program manager too.

Program Management Roles

The following end-user roles are for the Program Management module of the Portfolio Management application.

Portfolio Master

The portfolio manager can create and edit projects and demands into the portfolios which are assigned to the portfolio manager. The portfolio manager can also create new ideas from BMC Helix Digital Workplace and Portfolio Management application. The portfolio manager can view, vote, and add activity notes in ideas created by him/her and other contributors as well.

Portfolio Manager

End-to-end process

The following figure provides an overview of the Program lifecycle.

The program management process consists of the following procedures for handling program.

The portfolio manager/master logs in to Portfolio Management application and creates a new program following the steps given in Creating Programs.
The program is created in 'Ramp-Up' status. The portfolio manager/master re-visits the data on associated Requirements/Demands/Ideas which gives a clear picture of Projects that needs to be initiated and work on to achieve the organization's goal. The program manager/assignee takes a deeper look at the associated Requirement, Ideas, and Demand details to understand the overall Budget, Cost and Goals which is getting achieved while fulfilling this
The program manager updates the status program to 'Active' by following the steps in Changing Program Statuses, projects are implemented with specific objectives concerning requirements and demands in the Program.
The program manager can change the status of the program to 'Ramp - Down' by following the steps in Changing Program Statuses, for any of the following reasons:
- Circumstances Changes
- Business Justification
- Financial Hold
- Customer Hold
Once projects, demands, ideas, and requirements are completed, the program manager sets the status of the program to 'End of life', see Changing Program Statuses.

Program Management Data Access Model

The Program Management application uses row-level security (RLS) to control access to the record and fields. RLS is applied by using Security Labels in BMC Helix Innovation Studio.

The following table describes the Security Labels required for Portfolio Management:

Security Label Name	Description
Program Assignee	Grants write access to modify all information of the program. The permission is assigned to the Program Manager who can change the assignments.