An Investigation into the Gap Between Programme Management Theory and Practice

Abstract

The programme management approach was intended as a way of delivering organisational strategy and achieving beneficial outcomes through the coordination, prioritisation, and precise resources allocation of projects based on their relative “value” contribution. Such coordination of projects would offer greater sustainable valued outcomes, and has been widely adopted in the U.K. Despite the intentions of the theory of programme management, and the fact that literature largely concurring on the themes and facets of “programme management theory”, as much as 53% of programmes underperform in delivering their strategies and 34% of projects were found to offer no beneficial outcomes (NAO, Delivering major projects in government: a briefing for the committee of public accounts, 2016), suggesting that issues and flaws exist within this theory and that perhaps there is a gap in terms of the attention being given to the experience of managing programmes in practice. This study aimed to illustrate the challenges faced when exercising the theory of “programme management” in practice and utilised a qualitative in-depth focus group discussion amongst programme and project experts to do so. The primary data findings concluded that there is indeed a gap between the two that especially manifests in regard to issues with: the lack of strategic focus leading misalignment of projects thus the distortion of strategic vision, the subjectivity of “value” leading to conflict in the selection and prioritisation of projects and the rigid governance structures that prevent strategic decision-making and hinder innovation. Several attributions were made as to the root causes of these issues as well as possible solutions based on interpretations of expert opinions and the overall data analysis. Following a critical discussion and comparison between the primary and the literature findings, this study hypothesises that programme management theory and practice are still at an embryonic stage and yet to meet one another and that governance might the missing link between strategy formulation and execution. This study further recommends more empirical and qualitative research be conducted in order to bridge the gap between theory and practice and suggests that elements a hierarchically flatter governance structure, a bottom-up approach to strategy, visualisation to aid prioritisation, and human behavioural errors are important aspects to be taken into consideration when doing so.