A White Paper by a Panel of the National Academy of Public Administration sponsored by the Project Management Institute July 2015 Improving. Program Management in the Federal Government. PANEL – Peter Marshall, Chair; Dan Chenok; Joseph Wholey.

“…The recent high-profile failure of the Healthcare.gov launch is just one example from a long list of troubled government efforts to manage change efficiently and effectively. Fortunately, a management discipline — program management — has evolved over the past few decades to address the challenges of managing large, complex change initiatives. Program management has been embraced by the private sector with demonstrated success across a range of industries and endeavors. However, the adoption of program management in the federal government has been uneven. With the exception of the Department of Defense and some civilian agencies, such as NASA and the Department of Energy, program management capabilities are generally weak, with some pockets of strength. To help advance progress in this important area, the Project Management Institute (PMI) requested that the National Academy of Public Administration (the Academy) assemble a Panel of its expert Fellows to develop a white paper on how to strengthen project and program management capabilities across the government. While this paper is concerned with improving project and program management, its focus is on program management. The Panel identifies five key challenges to building effective program management capabilities across the federal government and seven conditions needed to support the development of program management. Based on this review, the Panel finds that a more systematic approach, backed by the authority of law, would facilitate the more rapid and consistent development of program management capabilities across the federal government. As part of this study, the Panel also considered proposed legislation HR 2144 — The Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act of 2015 — which directs the following actions:
1. Create a formal job series and career path for program managers in the federal government.
2. Develop a standards – based model for program management consistent throughout the federal government.
3. Designate a senior executive in each agency to be responsible for program management policy and strategy.
4. Establish an interagency council on program management to align agency approaches across the government.”