The purpose of this brief discussion is to highlight a significant and useful overlap between core Systems Engineering principles and Program/Project design and subsequent management.

Typically, programs are managed to coordinate a set of interrelated projects such that a phased set of capabilities are delivered to the business. The business then absorbs these capabilities to realise the planned benefits over time and deliver the performance enshrined in the Portfolio objectives.

The key here is that the decomposition of the work to be performed when designing a program (or project) will significantly benefit from adhering to the same rules that apply for designing systems.