Programme Team | Programme Governance Tools

Extending the theme further, look at the composition of the team in Figure 1.

Clearly, the programme director has overall responsibility for managing the different elements of the programme on a day-to-day basis and keeping it in good overall shape. This person will have a major influence on the way the programme is characterised. For example, if the person is known to have a particular leaning towards technical issues, it is possible that he or she will be allowed to be the dominant consideration and skew the activities of the programme team accordingly.

 
Figure 1: Programme team.

We are not saying that someone with a predominantly technical background is not fit to run HR transformation. Rather, we are making the point that the person chosen for this role must be capable of understanding the need to keep a number of workstreams properly aligned and not fall into the trap of allowing personal preferences or comfort zones to drive the programme in a particular direction, to the detriment of others. The best way of achieving this is to keep the overall customer experience 'front of mind' and use this as the basis for driving the programme forward.

Crucially, as we have discussed earlier in this chapter, the person must have exemplary stakeholder management skills; it is likely that these will be tested to the limit!

Reporting to the programme director, you would have, in an ideal situation, someone whose sole focus is on the day-to-day coordination of the plethora of activities that are associated with a major HR transformation programme. This individual would be very much at ease with one of the recognised programme management tools such as MS Project, and be in a position to advise the director of any apparent slippages or problems that might arise that would ultimately affect the declared programme milestones.

The need to split HR transformation into three main areas of technology, process and people. Here, we look in more detail at the sorts of activities and people profiles that would typically align with those areas.