How to Manage 30 People Across 5 Directorates

When your programme spans five directorates, you are not just managing technology. You are managing politics, priorities, budgets, and egos. Every directorate has its own agenda, its own resource constraints, and its own definition of success. Getting them all rowing in the same direction is the single most important thing a programme manager can do.

The first thing I do on any cross directorate programme is establish a shared governance structure. Not five separate governance structures that report up independently. One structure, with clear roles, that everyone has signed up to. This is non negotiable. Without it, you will spend every day mediating between competing priorities instead of delivering anything. I discuss the consequences of skipping this step in the real cost of getting IT governance wrong.

The second thing is stakeholder mapping. Not the generic exercise that gets filed away and forgotten. A real, working understanding of who influences what, who needs to be in which meetings, and who has the authority to unblock issues when they arise. This is a living document that I update constantly. Structured stakeholder management is the foundation that makes this possible.

The third thing is communication discipline. With 30 or more people across multiple teams, information gets lost, misinterpreted, or ignored. I establish a clear reporting cadence with structured updates that tell people what they need to know without drowning them in detail. Different stakeholders get different levels of information, tailored to their role and decision making authority.

It is hard work. But it is not complicated. It requires discipline, consistency, and the willingness to have difficult conversations early rather than letting problems fester. That is what I do. On one engagement, coordinating teams across multiple departments was central to a successful national heritage programme recovery.

Talk to Elisabeth about managing your complex, multi directorate programme.