Program integration in multi-project change programs: Agency in

Agency in integration practice

4.2.1 Rationale and positioning

One key challenge in program management is managing the interdependencies between the parent organization and a multi-project program and those between the projects of a program. To ensure that different subsystems work as a coherent, aligned unit, integration is required. Although there is a strong stream of literature on integration in permanent organizations (e.g., Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967), significantly fewer studies have analyzed integration in temporary organizations, especially in multi-project programs (Dietrich, 2006; Lehtonen and Martinsuo, 2009;

Turkulainen et al., 2015). In Article II, the term “program integration” referred to integration in multi-project programs.

Dietrich (2006) studied the integration of program projects and Lehtonen and Martinsuo (2009) focused on the interface between a program and a parent organization. Only Turkulainen et al. (2015) have studied integration in both interfaces (project-to-project and program-to-parent). Article II was positioned to contribute to the earlier literature by taking into account both integration interfaces.

In addition, the perspective of agency (Näsänen and Vanharanta, 2016) was utilized when analyzing the practice of integration in the case programs. The main argument was that it is not sufficient to limit the analyses to the utilized integration mechanisms. It is also important to understand how the different program actors utilize those integration mechanisms. Therefore, the following research questions were formulated:

1. What kind of integration mechanisms do program actors use in program-to-parent organization integration and project-to-project integration in organizational change programs?

2. How do program actors exercise their agency in program integration?

In terms of this dissertation, Article II focuses on two organizational interfaces: the program-to-parent organization interface and the project-to-project interface.

Integration is proposed as a means to manage value creation at these two interfaces.

4.2.2 Integration tasks and agency in integration

Article II studied integration in two organizational change programs. Five integration tasks were identified: 1) the creation and communication of a change vision; 2) the supervision of a program’s progress; 3) the exchange of information in the program–

parent interface; 4) the coordination of the multi-project program; and 5) the coordination and support of the individual project manager. Integration tasks (i.e., the purposes or goals of integration) provide a bridge between the utilized integration mechanisms and the goals of an organizational change program. The five integration tasks were grouped under the two integration interfaces in multi-project programs. Figure 7 illustrates the hierarchy of integration mechanisms, integration tasks, and integration interfaces.

Figure 7. Integration mechanisms, integration tasks, and integration interfaces (Article II).

In addition to the five integration tasks, several integration mechanisms were identified. The most heavily emphasized examples included program office meetings, management group meetings and workshops, and one-to-one discussions between project managers and between project managers and program managers.

Regarding the integration modes, most of the integration mechanisms were in the personal or group mode; few impersonal integration mechanisms were identified.

A key aspect of Figure 7 is that program actors utilize the same integration

mechanisms for various purposes (i.e., toward various integration tasks). For

instance, program office meetings were utilized in the “creating and communicating a change vision,” “supervising a program’s progress,” and “coordinating work in the multi-project program” integration tasks.

Finally, the concept of agency relates to the ways in which program actors utilize integration mechanisms and participate in integration tasks. The analyzed program actors included the parent organization, the program-level and project-level steering groups, the program manager, the project managers, and the employees. When comparing the two case programs, several relevant agency phenomena arose, as summarized in Figure 8.

Figure 8. Integration mechanisms, integration tasks, and integration interfaces (Article II).

Figure 8 illustrates how the practice of integration at the program front end sets requirements for integration in the implementation phase. There can be variance in the intensity of integration in the program–parent integration interface and in the program actors’ autonomy at different levels of the program. Finally, the program manager, as a key program actor, can take different integration actions.

4.2.3 Contribution of Article II

The majority of the previous literature on integration has focused on the integration

mechanisms utilized in different contexts. Although strongly linked to integration

mechanisms, this article contributed to the existing literature by proposing the

concept of an integration task and by highlighting program actors’ agency in

pursuing integration. Regarding the integration task, the concept bridges integration

mechanisms and the integration interfaces. This linkage answers the question: “Why

are these integration mechanisms used in this integration interface?”

With the agency viewpoint, this article shed light on the agency of program actors in pursuing program integration and on the different nature of program integration in the program front-end phase and in the program implementation phase. The agency viewpoint links this article to discussions on the program front end (Lehtonen and Martinsuo, 2008; Martinsuo and Lehtonen, 2007; Thiry, 2002), program and project actors’ autonomy (Gemünden et al., 2005; Hoegl and Parboteeah, 2006; Martinsuo et al., 2010), and program management competence (Miterev et al., 2016), for example.

Regarding value creation, this article proposes integration as a means to manage value creation in an embedded temporary organization (Bakker, 2010; Sydow et al., 2004; Turner and Müller, 2003). Especially at the interface between the temporary organization and the permanent organization, the viewpoint of value creation relates to aligning program goals with the requirements of the parent organization. In other words, integration is a means to ensure that the outcomes of the program are valuable or beneficial to the parent organization. There is a clear resemblance with benefits management, especially setting target benefits (e.g., Zwikael et al., 2018), here. Within the temporary organization, integration is used both to ensure goal alignment (e.g., by clarifying and re-defining goals) and to prevent loss of value (e.g., by solving problems and avoiding schedule problems or delays).

The concept of an integration task proposes that there is a distinction between

coordination and integration as well. Coordination and integration are often used

almost interchangeably in the literature (Dietrich, 2007). According to the findings

of this study, integration is more focused on vertical (i.e., program-to-parent)

interdependencies, while the focus of coordination is more on horizontal (i.e.,

project-to-project) interdependencies. However, the distinction between the two

concepts seems to be highly context-dependent.