Exploring the differences between a project and a program

For stakeholder management and communication plans, as with most key areas of management, the difference between managing a project and a program is about scale. The number of stakeholders increases and the number of concurrent communication plans that are being utilized increases. Instead of a single stand-up, you may have at least one per project, the same goes for status reports and possibly MBRs, depending on the complexity of the project.

This isn’t to say that you, as the TPM running the program, are directly responsible for each of these communications, but you are accountable to them. If a project is falling behind on statuses, or the TPM isn’t meeting with stakeholders enough to keep them in the loop, as the program manager, you are accountable to keep the project TPM on track. Luckily, there are some additional tools you can use to help keep the program’s stakeholders happy and communications...