Difference between Project - Sub Projects and Program - Project

[SK51]

I have questions what is the difference of 

a) Program and Projects

b) Project and Sub-Projects

What is the best practice on managing this? Would option a better or option b better? 

Appreciate advice on this. 

[Priyanka Vasant]

Hi SK,

Program : A program helps you to logically group related projects or demands under a single entity. The ServiceNow® Program Management application helps you to manage related projects and demands in coordinated way which is not possible when projects and demands are managed independently.

Projects : Define important aspects of your Agile, Waterfall, or Hybrid project such as the duration, estimated cost, and net value to the organization to efficiently track the project's progress.

Sub project :

The child project records of the current project.

I have attached Two documnets.Please check and let me know if it is useful.

Regards,

Priyanka A.

[SK51]

Hi Priyanka, 

But I guess it is still not answering in a more layman manner on the differences of 

a) Program and Projects
b) Project and Sub-Projects

What is the best practice on managing this? Would option A better or option B better?

Like for example, Option A - Program and Projects. 

Whatever that are raised in projects will be rolled up to Program. 

Is that the same for Project and Sub-Projects?

[TCasper]

Hi SK.  I am curious what you ended up deciding to proceed with regarding Program vs Project-Subproject?  My team is currently evaluating this as we deployed our platform just over a year ago and are seeing a decision point coming on this.  Thanks in advance

[shiwan_agrawal]

Hi @SK51 @TCasper 

When to use Program & Project vs Project & Sub Projects. Let me try to take a simple example which would cover all three aspects i.e. Program, Project and Sub-Project. Depending on your need, you can choose not to go with either Program or Sub Project.

Example: An organisation is planning to run a program as "HR Digital Transformation" which is expected to run for a duration of 8-10 years (Projects shouldn't run for this big duration) and as part of this, they are planning to do the following (Each item can be considered as "Project"):

- Digitalised Compensation Review System

- Improve Employee On Boarding & Off Boarding experience

- Contingent Worker Onboarding

All the above three projects are planned to be delivered by 3 different project managers so we register them under our mentioned program.

For project, "Improve Employee On Boarding & Off Boarding experience", they have decided to run On Boarding and Off Boarding items in parallel (Considering they want to deliver it fast and via 2 different vendors or teams). In this case, both of them can be considered as Sub Projects under parent project, "Improve Employee On Boarding & Off Boarding experience"

You can argue, what if I register On Boarding and Off Boarding as two separate projects under the program itself. In such cases both the ways are correct because at the end it all depends on the complexity of the organisation process.

I tried my best to explain and in case, given explanation helps answering your question, please accept as correct answer.