According to the PMBOK Guide and The Standard for Program Management, a program is defined as a group of related projects, subsidiary programs, and program activities managed in a coordinated manner to obtain benefits not available from managing them individually.
* Relationship and Commonality: Projects are grouped into a program when they share common outcomes or a collective capability. For example, a series of projects to develop a new satellite system (launch vehicle, satellite hardware, and ground control software) are grouped because they all contribute to the single outcome of space communication.
* Synergy: Managing these projects together allows the organization to optimize the use of shared knowledge, skills, and resources. It also allows for better management of interdependencies and conflicting constraints.
* Benefit Realization: The primary focus of program management is on the delivery of the " benefits " and the " collective capability " rather than just the individual project deliverables.
Comparison with other options:
* A. Portfolio: A portfolio consists of projects, programs, subsidiary portfolios, and operations managed as a group to achieve strategic objectives. The components of a portfolio do not necessarily have to be related or share common outcomes; they are grouped based on strategic priority and resource allocation.
* C. Selection: This refers to the process of " Project Selection, " which is a technique used to decide which projects the organization should invest in, often using net present value (NPV) or internal rate of return (IRR). It is not a grouping of active projects.
* D. Sub portfolio: A sub-portfolio is a smaller grouping within a larger portfolio. While it contains projects and programs, the defining characteristic of sharing " common outcomes and collective capability " specifically points to the PMI definition of a program.