How can you align program risks and issues with your vision?
As a program manager, you have a vision of what you want to achieve with your program and how it aligns with the organizational strategy. However, you also face various risks and issues that can derail your plan and jeopardize your outcomes. How can you align program risks and issues with your vision and manage them effectively? Here are some tips to help you:
Before you can align your risks and issues with your vision, you need to have a clear and compelling vision that guides your program. Your vision should describe the desired future state, the benefits, the stakeholders, and the value proposition of your program. It should also be aligned with the organizational strategy, mission, and values. Your vision should be communicated and shared with your program team, sponsors, and other key stakeholders to ensure buy-in and commitment.
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1) Identify and prioritize potential risks and issues using tools like SWOT analysis, risk registers, and matrices based on probability, impact, urgency, and severity. 2) Develop and implement appropriate responses for risks (avoid, reduce, transfer, accept) and issues (resolve, escalate, defer). 3) Analyze potential risk impact and assign priority for mitigation. 4) Monitor risks using surveys, interviews, observations, documents, and reports. 5) Risk management is an ongoing process requiring constant monitoring and evaluation with available tools and techniques.
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The biggest challenge is that people do not understand their organisatin's VMV, so there is no attempt to align the Program's vision with it. I will attempt to use an example. A fictitious organisation XYZ with the following strategy, vision, mission, values: Strategy: Global leader in innovative technology solutions. Vision: Empower a brighter, connected world through tech. Mission: Deliver exceptional solutions while fostering innovation, diversity, and sustainability. Values: Innovation, Customer-Centricity, Diversity, Sustainability, Integrity. These are quite standard VMVs and most organisations will find a flavour of their real VMVs in these. The company starts Operational Resilience Program. The rest in the next question.
Once you have a clear vision, you need to identify and prioritize the potential risks and issues that can affect your program. Risks are uncertain events or conditions that can have a positive or negative impact on your program objectives, while issues are problems that have already occurred or are likely to occur and require immediate action. You can use various tools and techniques, such as brainstorming, SWOT analysis, risk registers, issue logs, and risk matrices, to identify and prioritize your risks and issues based on their probability, impact, urgency, and severity.
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Here I attempt to draw parallels with Program's vision and the organisation's. Program Vision: "Ensuring Uninterrupted Operations for a Stronger XYZ Corporation" This aligns with organisation's strategy, emphasizing reliability and sustainability. This supports organization's mission to provide sustainable services and solutions to its customers. Operational Resilience needs innovation, customer-centricity, diversity, sustainability, and integrity - hence program supports XYZ's Values also. This alignment ensures that the Operational Resilience Program contributes effectively to XYZ Corporation's strategic goals and upholds its core values. I will be happy to do detailed exercise with real companies, real VMV, and real programs.
After you have identified and prioritized your risks and issues, you need to align them with your vision and determine how they can affect your program outcomes. You can use a vision alignment matrix, which is a tool that helps you map your risks and issues to your vision elements, such as benefits, value proposition, stakeholders, and future state. By doing this, you can see how your risks and issues can enhance or hinder your vision, and how you can leverage or mitigate them accordingly.
Once you have aligned your risks and issues with your vision, you need to develop and implement appropriate responses to manage them. For risks, you can choose from four strategies: avoid, reduce, transfer, or accept. For issues, you can choose from three strategies: resolve, escalate, or defer. You should also assign roles and responsibilities, define action plans, monitor progress, and update stakeholders on the status of your risk and issue management.
Finally, you need to review and adjust your vision periodically to ensure that it remains relevant and realistic in the face of changing risks and issues. You should evaluate the effectiveness of your risk and issue responses, the impact of your risks and issues on your program outcomes, and the alignment of your vision with the organizational strategy. You should also solicit feedback from your program team, sponsors, and other stakeholders, and make necessary changes to your vision to reflect new opportunities, challenges, or expectations.
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