Managing Complex Projects and Programs: How to Improve Leadership of Complex Initiatives Using a Third-Generation Approach

Chapter 7Adaptations of the Traditional Two-Party Fully Governed Project Oversight Model

Stakeholder Stories

I found it curious that in discussion after discussion, executives and programmaticists were very quick to state that their organizations used a two-party fully governed model to oversee their projects. The principles and assumptions of the two-party fully governed model often seemed to define their programmatic mindset—the model provided a seemingly common frame of reference that they applied “by default” when talking about the respective roles of their governing committees and programmaticists. As those discussions wound on, however, it became clear that many of their organizations’ project oversight systems, while derived from the two-party fully governed project oversight model, were actually quite different from the relatively simple model that we described in the previous chapter. Their oversight models had evolved significantly over the years. I have had the opportunity to discuss the evolution of their models with many organizational stakeholders, and their stories are interesting.

The stakeholders’ stories often began with a description of the presumably unique problems that were being faced by their organizations as they sought to manage projects using the two-party fully governed project oversight model. Often, their stories were about how their models seemed to have “failed” them in some way—about how their models had not sufficiently ensured that project-related ...