The decision on which toolset to deploy should depend on the scope of the change required, for example, if you were building a new road bypass around a town, it would be a large project but if you extend the scope to include social or commercial regeneration of local communities then you are moving into programme territory.

It is important that organisations adopting MSP are using it in the right context, the following will help differentiate a programme from a Corporate Portfolio or large projects.

Corporate Portfolio characteristics

• focus will be on leadership and alignment with corporate strategy
• the vision and blueprint will be for the entire organsation
• the timescales for the portfolio will be vague or even undefined
• risk will be viewed from the strategic perspective and business continuity
• integrity of the entire business transformation through programme and projects
• benefits orientation will to be organisational benefits that affect all areas and linked to organisational goals
• stakeholder management will have a strategic and external focus
• governance will be setting of policies and standards
• quality will be viewed from the perspective of portfolio alignment and effectiveness
• issue management will relate to programmes extending beyond boundaries and margins
• planning will be viewed from outcome dependency and resolving conflicts
• will include a combination of programmes and projects
• business case may not exist or be conceptual  

Programme characteristics

• focus will be on direction and delivery of strategy
• vision and blueprint focus will be within the programme boundary
• timescales will be loosely defined, but there will be an end point at which the programme will be focused
• risk focus will be on aggregation of project risk and operational transition
• issue orientation will be towards resolving inter project escalations and benefits delivery
• planning will be orientated to delivering outcomes through Tranches and managing project interdependencies
• benefit delivery will dominate, with significant focus on the rigor of benefit profiling and realisation.
• governance will be applied through programme strategies and application of organisational or portfolio standards where they exist
• stakeholder management will be focused at all levels in the organisation and key external influencers
• quality focus will be on control and improvement
• business case will be focused on benefit realisation balanced against the project and programme costs

Project characteristics

• focus will be on management and co-ordination
• concentrates on delivering outputs to time and cost constraints
• quality will focus on fit for purpose outputs based on requirements
• business case will be focused on accurate budgeting for the output delivery
• risk will be focused on the costs, quality and timescales of delivery
• issue management will be product and fit for purpose focus
• planning will be product and activities orientated
• benefit focus will be delivering fit for purpose outputs that enable benefit realisation