Leading programs can sometimes feel like sailing a ship through a storm. Much like ship captains, program managers face enormous pressure in bringing large groups of people together to deliver value on time and on budget, while fighting to stay afloat in an ocean of ever-shifting priorities, complications, and delays.
With tight deadlines and a significant financial investment at stake, it’s critical for organizations to get things right from the start. A strong vision provides your program with a guiding light that unites teams and forges successful program outcomes. Program management can greatly raise the likelihood of success by crafting a quality vision statement, aligning objectives with existing business goals, and cultivating a team that embraces innovation and adaptability to achieve the program vision.
Lead with Strong Vision
When launching any company initiative, your first step should be creating a vision that defines exactly what it is that you’re trying to achieve. A vision is a short message that maps out the future of your initiative. It should be memorable, aspirational, and easily consumable.
The vision serves as your program’s North Star. It clarifies the initiative’s purpose and provides direction to stakeholders at all levels of the organization. A strong vision will help align leaders on the program’s scope, prioritize the proper resources, and enable leaders to focus the team on the key outcomes for the program and organization.
Creating a Vision Statement
Creating a vision statement may sound simple at first, but the task is typically not that straightforward. Crafting a vision is a process, and one that should not be shortchanged. The key to a quality vision is that it must inspire team members to engage in the program and deliver value for the organization.
Start by assembling key stakeholders and influencers from across your organization to gather their input. Individuals in different roles and functions will bring their own unique perspectives and priorities to the initiative. It’s not unusual for this process to inspire passionate debate—and that’s a good thing. The more input and effort that goes into your vision, the more accurately it will reflect the value and desired outcomes the program will bring to the organization.
There are several activities that can help with crafting a vision, like creating a Future Press Release. In this exercise, the group envisions a future in which the program has been successfully completed. This serves two purposes: First, it provides a method for collecting key messaging for the vision. Then it can be used to develop the plan by working backward to establish the steps that led to that success. This technique is useful for identifying potential disruptions that could occur during the program. Most important, it will help you craft a vision strong enough to guide the team through the challenges of achieving the intended program outcomes.
Ensure Real Value Through Strategic Alignment
Once the vision for the program has been defined in terms of the organization’s strategic goals, the next step should be breaking the vision down into program goals and objectives. It is critical that a connection be made between the vision, the program’s goals and objectives, and the organization’s strategy. This enables the team to focus on smaller objectives that roll up with a clear path to the organization’s strategic goals. That may seem obvious, but it is common for teams to divert from the program’s desired outcome and strategic objectives. A good vision enables the team to stay focused on the reason the organization is investing in the program.
Much like with a vision, a set of aligned goals brings all stakeholders together with a clear line to established priorities. Returning to the ship metaphor for a moment, think of these goals as critical stops on your program’s journey. Providing a map to well-established ports will help everyone on board to understand precisely where they are headed. The same logic applies in an organizational setting. Tying your program goals to established objectives will greatly improve your stakeholder management efforts by providing clear path forward that can be understood by everyone.
Building Strategic Alignment
Once you’ve understood the organization’s objectives and aligned your program outcomes to them, you can then focus on creating goals for the program itself. Start by defining value-added outcomes that will impact the organization’s objectives. If your organization uses Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), select the OKRs that your program directly supports and build your goals accordingly.
A “walking deck” is a key tool to reinforce strategic alignment. This is a short slide deck (typically no more than three slides) that outlines the program’s vision, goals, and OKRs that correspond to the organization’s strategic objectives. The walking deck serves as a map that keeps stakeholders and program teams focused on the same goals as the program moves forward.
Prioritize Innovation and Adaptability
Program team members function like a crew made up of diverse individuals navigating the unknown in pursuit of a shared goal. Ships function best when individual crew members take ownership of their role and are empowered to solve their own problems. The same overriding principles apply here as well. Use the program vision and walking deck to provide the reason why the program exists and the intended outcome of the solution the team will develop. It is critical to let the teams defining the solution to determine how the solution will be developed. Then, validate that the solution being developed will result in the intended outcome, achieving the desired organizational objective.
As the team works to determine how they will develop the solution, encourage them to be innovative and adaptable. This makes it more likely that they will develop a business solution that meets or exceeds the desired program outcomes. Unfortunately, innovation and adaptability rarely happen organically; they need to be purposely cultivated.
Cultivating Innovation and Adaptability
Experimentation is a key component of innovation. To cultivate innovation, leaders need to create an environment that empowers teams to work locally and solve their own problems. Building opportunities for employees to experiment in their work fosters creative problem-solving and enhances program outcomes.
Innovation goes hand in hand with adaptability. The more creative your team members are, the more efficiently they’ll be able to react to challenges. Creating an adaptable work culture goes beyond equipping your team for change. By embedding change into the way team members work, you create a culture in which change is not seen as something to be feared, but as an opportunity for continuous improvement.
While encouraging program managers to foster innovation and adaptability in their programs, emphasize that the solution being developed will achieve the program vision, drive the desired outcome, and result in supporting the organization’s strategic objectives.
Building Vision and Change Through Collaboration
Leading programs can be a voyage into the unknown. As with any journey, your program requires a well-defined destination, a solid plan, and a trusted team able to adapt to changes and be innovative when possible. Vision is the critical component that unites teams and ensures that the organization’s investment results in a full realization of benefits. Achieving program outcomes and strategic objectives is never easy, but by stating your vision as clearly as possible, you can focus the team to achieve your intended business results.
For more, learn about The Value of Burndown Charts to Manage Project Costs.
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