Program

A program is a temporary, flexible organisation created to coordinate, direct and oversee the implementation of a set of related projects and activities in order to deliver outcomes and benefits related to the organisation's strategic objectives. A program is likely to be longer term and have a life that spans several years. Programs typically deal with outcomes; whereas projects deal with outputs.

Projects that form part of a program may be grouped together for a variety of reasons including spatial co-location (e.g. Western Sydney Infrastructure Program), the similar nature of the projects (e.g. Bridges for the Bush) or projects collectively achieving an outcome (e.g. 2018 Rail Timetable). Programs provide an umbrella under which these projects can be coordinated. This represented in Figure H1.

Figure H1 Program

Programs can be linear in nature with individual projects being delivered consecutively or with staggered starts. Other programs may be very complex in nature where the component parts of a program could be individual projects or smaller groups of projects (sub-programs). In some instances, this may not be linear with some component parts of the program fully delivered before other parts of the program have been completed or even commenced. This represented in Figure H2.

Figure H2 Program delivery