A framework can organise program management, but it cannot decide how the organisation's politics, culture, sponsors and operating constraints should actually be governed.
When a transformation begins to lose control, one common response is to strengthen methodology. Add gates. Clarify templates. Standardise reports. Increase assurance. Require every workstream to follow the same process.
Some of that can be exactly right. A complex program without consistent information, accountability or decision rights can become impossible to govern.
The danger begins when leaders assume that because the framework is complete, the management problem is complete.
Programs operate inside organisations that have histories, power structures, commercial commitments, cultural norms, external pressures and uneven capabilities. The framework enters that system. It does not replace it.
The Strategic Context
The strongest source in this batch is the empirical study by Pellegrinelli, Partington, Hemingway, Mohdzain and Shah. The researchers examined six programmes across commercial and UK public-sector organisations, using the then-current Managing Successful Programmes guidance as a reference point. Even where MSP was mandated, practices were not applied consistently. Program teams selectively adapted structures and techniques to reconcile competing aims, deal with adversity and engage multiple sponsors, contributors and stakeholders.
Their finding is not that frameworks are useless. It is that program management is context-dependent and organisationally embedded.
Deloitte's 2014 practitioner material reaches a compatible practical position. It advocates common governance, processes and tools, while also stating that program processes should be tailored to the specific program. The historical BIS guidance similarly provides a structured governance architecture but recognises cross-organisational programs, diverse stakeholders, uncertainty and the need to select an appropriate management approach.
The leadership challenge is therefore to preserve enough consistency for control while retaining enough adaptability for the program to work in the real organisation.
Related article: Governance Should Fit the Organisation, Not the Template
What Leaders Commonly Misread
The first misread is compliance as capability. A program can have every required document and still lack the decision quality, stakeholder commitment or operational ownership needed to create value.
The second misread is tailoring as an exception. Leaders sometimes treat adaptation as evidence that teams are avoiding discipline. In reality, tailoring can be a sign that managers understand the actual coordination problem. The question is whether the adaptation preserves governance intent.
The third misread is one governance model for all contexts. A regulatory reform involving multiple agencies should not necessarily be governed like a product-development program inside one business unit. A global ERP transformation should not automatically use the same cadence as a public infrastructure program.
The fourth misread is formal structure as the whole decision system. An organisation chart may show a program board, SRO, program manager and project boards, but material decisions may still be shaped through finance committees, business-unit executives, supplier relationships or informal sponsor negotiations.
Reframing the Issue
Program governance has two layers.
The first is governance intent. This should remain stable. It includes clear accountability, decision rights, benefit ownership, credible information, escalation, assurance and strategic alignment.
The second is governance form. This should be adapted. It includes committee design, meeting cadence, documentation depth, control thresholds, reporting format, specialist roles and how decision authority is distributed.
Confusing the two creates two opposite failures.
Under-governance occurs when teams use "tailoring" to remove accountability, evidence or control.
Over-governance occurs when teams preserve every standard process even where it adds delay, duplicates authority or obscures the decisions that matter.
The aim is context-fit governance.
Strategic Analysis: What Context Changes the Design?
Political and stakeholder context
Programs that affect many power centres need governance that can surface and resolve competing interests. Pellegrinelli's research found continual crafting of program arrangements around divergent aims and multiple sponsors. In such programs, decision rights and escalation routes matter more than adding another progress report.
A public-sector reform may require representation from autonomous organisations whose interests are not identical. A commercial transformation may involve business units protecting local performance while the program pursues enterprise standardisation. The governance model must recognise those tensions rather than pretending they are project issues.
Cultural context
An organisation accustomed to central authority may be able to use directive decisions effectively. A highly federated organisation may require stronger coalition building and negotiated commitments. Neither model is automatically superior.
Culture also determines how bad news travels. A formal risk process has little value if managers are punished for surfacing problems. Conversely, a culture that values autonomy may need stronger minimum standards to prevent local optimisation.
Commercial context
Supplier dependencies, partner incentives and contract boundaries can materially change program governance. A program involving several major vendors needs clear architecture authority, integrated change control and commercial decision routes. A program delivered mostly by internal teams may require more emphasis on line-management commitment and operational ownership.
Strategic uncertainty
Where the target state is relatively stable, stronger up-front definition may be efficient. Where the business model or technology is uncertain, governance should preserve learning and option value. The controls should test assumptions and release funding progressively rather than force false precision.
Organisational capability
A mature organisation may be able to delegate more authority because project, risk and financial disciplines are reliable. A less mature organisation may need stronger central support, simpler controls and more hands-on integration. Governance should not assume capability that the enterprise does not possess.
Decision Framework: Stable Principles, Adaptive Mechanisms
Leaders can separate program design into two columns.
| Keep stable | Adapt to context |
|---|---|
| Strategic outcome and benefit ownership | Committee structure and membership |
| Clear accountability | Reporting cadence and format |
| Decision rights and escalation | Control thresholds |
| Evidence quality | Degree of documentation |
| Financial and risk integrity | Delivery method and lifecycle |
| Assurance independence where required | Specialist roles and PMO size |
| Ownership of transition into operations | Stakeholder engagement mechanisms |
The test is simple: if a proposed tailoring weakens the left column, challenge it. If it changes only the right column while improving the fit to reality, it may be exactly what good governance requires.
From Strategy to Execution
Immediate action is to create a short context statement before finalising program governance. Describe the strategic uncertainty, stakeholder landscape, organisational culture, regulatory exposure, delivery partners, capability maturity and operating constraints. Governance design should be traceable to those conditions.
Medium-term capability building requires formalising a tailoring process. Program teams should be able to explain why they have modified a control, what governance objective remains protected and what evidence will show whether the adaptation works. That turns tailoring from informal exception into accountable design.
Long-term strategic positioning means learning across programs without forcing sameness. Maintain a library of governance patterns and lessons: what worked in multi-agency reforms, global technology rollouts, acquisitions, manufacturing transformations and regulatory programs. Reuse principles and patterns, not entire blueprints.
Related article: From Framework Knowledge to Executive Judgement: Diagnose Before You Recommend
Signals to Monitor
Warning signs include repeated requests for exemptions with no rationale, governance forums that reproduce the same information at several levels, unresolved decision ownership, business leaders delegating benefit accountability to the program office, project teams complying with templates while bypassing formal decisions, and assurance findings that focus on documentation completeness rather than outcome risk.
The opposite warning sign is a program so heavily tailored that common language and comparability disappear. If every component defines status, risk or financial performance differently, executives cannot govern the whole.
Healthy programs can explain both what is standard and why specific elements are different.
References
- Pellegrinelli, S., Partington, D., Hemingway, C., Mohdzain, Z. & Shah, M. 2007, 'The importance of context in programme management: An empirical review of programme practices', International Journal of Project Management, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 41-55.
- Pellegrinelli, S. 2002, 'Shaping context: the role and challenge for programmes', International Journal of Project Management, vol. 20, pp. 229-233.
- Department for Business, Innovation and Skills 2010, Guidelines for Managing Programmes, UK Government.
- Deloitte 2014, Programme Delivery, Deloitte Consulting, Programme Leadership.
Questions for the Leadership Team
- Which parts of our program governance are principles, and which are merely inherited conventions?
- What political, cultural or commercial conditions make this program different from the last one?
- Where has standardisation improved decision quality, and where has it created duplicate control?
- Which governance adaptations have been explicitly justified, and which have evolved informally?
- Are we measuring framework compliance or actual confidence in benefits, risk and execution?
- If our context changed materially next quarter, how quickly could the governance model change with it?
Closing Perspective
A program framework should give leaders a disciplined starting point, not a reason to stop thinking. The most credible governance combines stable principles with context-sensitive mechanisms. When leaders know which elements must never be compromised and which should evolve with the organisation, the framework becomes an instrument of judgement rather than a substitute for it.
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