Manage It!

Organizing Multiple Related Projects into One Release

Managing a program is similar to—but bigger than—managing a project. Especially when you’re trying to bring people and deliverables across the organization (and not just across the technical organization) together, you’ll need influencing and negotiation skills. But the first thing you need is a plan.

I’ve used a template similar to this program plan in a variety of situations where I wanted to make sure the entire program was focused on the deliverable and how to make their part of the deliverable work.

Here’s a program plan template:

• Overview

• Features

• Program requirements

• Program goals

• Market evaluation and marketing plan

• Sales plan

• ROI and product lifetime

• Schedule overview

• Staffing ...