The path to better program management: a road still less traveled

Initiated in 1990, the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) High-Risk List identifies federal programs vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement or in need of transformation. The list is updated every two years for the Congress. 

The most recent list, published in February 2025, contains 38 problem areas. But if one looks at common themes, threads or causes, there appear to be three tall poles in the tent: (1) human resources; (2) technology; and (3) acquisition, to include project/program management. 

With attention devoted today in a post-DOGE government to efficiency, and an administration focused on large-scale change, project and program management have taken on renewed import. Beyond being a recurring theme on the GAO’s list, longstanding concerns have been expressed in articles and reports by Professor Don Kettl, professor emeritus and former dean of the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland, the IBM Center for the Business of Government, ACT-IAC, the National Academy of Public Administration, the Project Management Institute and a group of former senior government management leaders colloquially referred to as “The Breakfast Club.” 

These activities and studies raised congressional interest in how best to improve management of government programs and, after more discussions and a series of hearings, a bipartisan group of congressional leaders introduced the Program Management Improvement and Accountability Act (PMIAA), which was signed into law in December, 2016 — a little over a decade ago. This legislation included many of the recommendations from the efforts of the groups noted earlier:

• Establishment of a Program Management Policy Council;
• Standards and policies for agencies consistent with widely accepted standards for program and project management planning and delivery;
• Engagement with the private sector to identify best practices in program and project management;
• Portfolio reviews to address high risk programs, including reviews of programs at least annually to assess management quality and effectiveness;
• and Office of Personnel Management regulations to identify (1) key skills and competencies for an agency program and project manager; (2) establish a job series for such positions within an agency; and (3) establish a new career path for such managers.

The Office of Management and Budget subsequently issued implementation guidance in 2018 in M-18-19 Implementation of PMIAA, addressing standards and accountability, workforce improvements, portfolio reviews and also requiring agencies to appoint a Program Management Improvement Officer to oversee policies. It’s almost a decade later and the federal landscape remains littered with what Peat-Marwick once dubbed “runaway systems” — projects that are over budget, behind schedule and failing to deliver promised benefits and functionality. 

The government is still trying to deal with long-standing systems modernization and upgrades at the Social Security Administration, the Internal Revenue Service, the Federal Aviation Administration, the National Weather Service and other departments and agencies. New technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum bring unique challenges; the pace of technology overall is more rapid today. The need for strong project and program management capabilities and skills are even more central to success. So what can be done to increase the likelihood for success? Let us offer some thoughts. 

First, we applaud the cross-agency recruitment initiative announced last month by the Office of Personnel Management to hire 250 project managers across government. More than 15 agencies have already expressed interest in the opportunity. But, as a reminder (in terms of terminology), “project” and “program” have different meanings. 

A “project” is undertaken to create a unique product, service or result. In terms of an earlier modernization of the National Weather Service that one of the authors oversaw, a “project” would be the Automated Surface Observation System or the Next Generation Radar upgrade. A “program” is a group of related projects managed in a coordinated manner to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually. So the modernization program involved these two initiatives as well as a new generation of geostationary weather satellites, ocean data buoys, an integrated processing system to tie the data streams together and issue forecasts, office closures, a remaking of the professional and support workforce and more. 

For programs, in addition to each attendant project reaching its objective, one has to manage the interdependencies and integration between these projects and ensure they collectively deliver the program’s promised benefits. To become a capable program manager, a professional needs significant experience and expertise managing projects. Having identified a critical, government-wide skills gap in project management, OPM needs to move to address the even more serious need for seasoned program managers. 

Second, program managers need to be aligned with acquisition executives, chief information officers and heads of other key stakeholder groups with joint accountability for success based on a common set of measures. The program manager should be the tip of the spear, with both the authority to make decisions and the responsibility for program outcomes. 

Third, having a consistent measuring system for large programs, linked to governance, is essential, and it should be viewed as such by agency leadership. Agencies need standard reporting mechanisms in place that programs follow to establish a baseline, along with a toolset to monitor and report cost, schedule and performance. There should be consistent reporting on program status, issues, risks and recommendations via dashboards. And those dashboards should provide real-time views, allow drill-downs for more specificity and be tailored for specific oversight board needs. 

Finally, agencies should have a process in place to provide support when a program begins to falter, with the ability to rapidly bring in expertise to identify and address performance weaknesses or failures. We should acknowledge that even organizations with skilled and mature program management disciplines in place will encounter problems and unexpected challenges.

With these building blocks in place, agencies can focus on what is important — performance and delivering for citizens. Programs fail for many reasons, including governance, meaningless metrics and insufficient capacity for or willingness to change. Let’s follow a path of better management to ensure success. And sound program management is especially needed as government faces current citizen service imperatives and global challenges — operating in an era with artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies along with new risks in cybersecurity, supply chains and so on. 

Alan Balutis is managing partner at The CIO Collective. Gazelle Hashemian is president and CEO of BluJuniper, Inc.