3 Stages of Program Planning

After program managing the launch and/or post-merger / acquisition integration of over a dozen medical device manufacturing firms, our team has adapted a highly effective 3-stage program planning process. By taking the approach outlined we not only fulfill the objective of establishing a firm, lowest risk possible launch date, we also “ease’ the team into the process, some of which may have no experience working with a Program Management Office (PMO).

What follows is a top-level outline of the process: considerations at each stage and guidance on how to apply the process to get to a firm launch date in 3 easy stages!

Stage	Objective is to determine	Based on
1	Rough / target launch timeframe (quarter)	Top-level planning (high-level milestones, key deliverables & unverified  interdependencies with internal & 3rd party resources)
2	Target month	Next level of planning (fleshing out detail-level tasking, verified interdependencies, confirmed level of effort, durations, resourcing, etc.)
3	Launch date (day of month)	Optimized, detail-level plan FULLY vetted by the cross-functional team

Let’s now apply the process, to a simple example: we have decided to host a dinner party next week. We don’t know yet who is coming, their food preferences and/or restrictions and therefore what we shall be serving.

It is time to begin planning…We’ll do so by applying the 3 stages to our dinner party scenario.

Stage 1: Our objective here is to determine overall scope and rough timeline.

Some questions we need addressed at this stage include:

• how many people are coming to our party?
• what are the dietary preferences and/or restrictions we need to accommodate?
• what shall we serve?
• what are the recipes for each item we’ll prepare from scratch?
• what do we need to acquire at the store?
• based on a top-level review of the recipes involved, what is the rough timeline and logistics needed to acquire, store, prep, cook and serve the meal?
• and, finally, what might we need to ask from others (can you prep a dessert, bring extra chairs and/or contact Zoe for…?).

Essentially, we are taking inventory of all the moving parts, putting them on an organized list and plotting out a very rough timeline.

Stage 2: Our objective here is to firm-up our plans.

We’ll do so by nailing down:

• more precisely, who is handling each task, when and how long each is expected to take
• firm commitments on those items and/or activities we’ve asked others for help on (a.k.a. interdependencies)
• any issues or concerns (a.k.a. risks) to completing the tasks at hand and identifying ways to mitigate these risks

In summary, we are establishing firm commitments and tying all the moving parts together into a cohesive plan and identifying key risks to successfully meeting our objective (an enjoyable dinner party, for all!).

Stage 3: Our objective here is to finalize and optimize our plans in preparation for execution.

To do so we’ll comb through our plan with all parties involved, with an eye towards optimization and efficiency. At this stage we might ask questions such as

• why does THIS step take so long? Isn’t there a much faster / more efficient way to do this?
• it looks like both of you are doing a similar task: how can we ease the burden on both of you relative to this activity? What is the specific overlap? Could one leverage the results of the other? Could one of you handle for both?

At a high-level, that’s it!

While the above provides an over-simplified review of the process, the key reality is that the project team simply needs time to move through the 3 stages. For example, early on in a project we don’t want to spend too much time in the weeds trying to optimize things before we have a complete inventory of all the moving parts, otherwise we’ll miss the bigger picture.

In terms of the time needed to run through the process? That ALL depends on the time commitment and efforts of the key stakeholders / team members. On average, this process can take, at a minimum, 4-6 weeks and much longer if the team is unable to devote SIGNIFICANT, contiguous time together in the planning process. That said, once the plan is nailed down it is all about focused execution.

The 3-stage process can be likened to peeling the layers off an onion. That is, it is an iterative approach to build-out the overall program framework and inventory of activities, then continuing to dive deeper in each stage as we peel back the next level of detail, arriving at a fully-vetted plan that the entire team is comfortable with and has bought into.

In fact, we are in the middle of exercising this time-proven process with one of our newest clients, right now!

In closing, if you’d like to learn more about our approach to establishing and managing DRIVING program / project plans and teams, feel free to read our many blog posts on this. You’ll find a topical index of these articles by clicking here.