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years. Although we have agreed on some targets now, they may have to be
changed down the road.”
Both in Bureau and in Chain the discussions about the program nature
seemed to abate as the programs proceeded from initiation to more detailed
planning and to early implementation. To illustrate this progress, the
following quote from Chain shows how the program actors were able to
overcome the early confusion and decrease uncertainty:
Q93 (Chain, project manager): “In the beginning, we tried to go through these
issues with people, discussing what was known and what wasn’t. The approach
wasn’t very systematic, but it resembled iteration: we tried to increase our
understanding until there was high pressure to write these things down and
prepare a project plan. Things tend to get clearer when you write them down
and this is what happened here as well: things started to get clear little by
little.”
4.6.4 Origin of the program and progress of the initiation process
The fourth factor that seems to explain some of the differences across the
cases is the origin of the programs. Here the origin refers both to the level
in the organizational hierarchy where the program idea was initiated, and
to the decision making process of how the program was formally launched.
The idea for Center’s program had appeared during the yearly planning
process in the discussion of an expert and a manager who both had
expertise in organizational development and who were both somewhat
familiar with and enthusiastic about the program management approach.
Their ideas for several potential program topics were taken to Center’s
management group that chose two topics to be implemented as programs.
The other chosen topic was more clearly defined and the development
activities initiated in this area were soon embedded in the line
organization’s processes. The topic of the case program dealt with more
challenging issues. Since the manager who had come up with the program
idea refused to take over the program owner’s or program manager’s role
due to busy schedules, one of the top managers was nominated as the
program owner, and the search for a program manager began.
Those involved in initiating Center’s program described how it was hard
to find a program manager, as there were very few people with the required
competence. This search took some time, but finally an expert was found
who somewhat reluctantly accepted the task and was appointed as the
program manager (although with a title indicating lower authority, see
section 4.1.1). However, he was not given a clear mandate and he also felt
that he did not receive enough guidelines and direction from the top
managers. Some also seemed to doubt his skills and viewed him to be
unsuitable for the position. Adding another challenge, soon after the
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