magnus919_agent-skills/technical-program-management/references/program-control.md

# Program control and troubleshooting

**Applicability:** Load for integrated status, governance, dependency, risk, or recovery work.

## Integrated control record

Maintain links to component records, not copied status prose. At minimum record:

- shared outcome, current program phase, and accountable sponsor;
- component project/workstream, owner, current forecast, and acceptance state;
- cross-project dependency, provider, receiver, ready definition, needed-by date, and evidence;
- shared capacity/funding constraint and competing demand;
- benefit/disbenefit, owner, measure, baseline, target, timing, and confidence;
- program risk/issue, decision, assumption, change, escalation, and next checkpoint.

Use status by dimension: outcome, schedule, integration, dependency, capacity, quality,
adoption, benefits, and risk. Unknown is a valid status when evidence is missing or stale.

## Common failure patterns

| Signal | Diagnose | Response |
|---|---|---|
| All components green, program red | Integration, dependency aging, shared capacity, or benefit assumptions | Reconstruct the seam and prepare an owner-authorized trade-off |
| Outputs ship, benefits do not move | Adoption, operating model, measurement, or causal assumption | Test the benefit chain and change funding/scope or stop |
| Every decision escalates | Missing delegated authority or unclear tolerance | Map decision rights and reserve escalation for exceptions |
| Program is a project list | No shared outcome or coordination value | Remove unrelated work or route it to portfolio governance |
| Status is disputed | Different baselines, definitions, or evidence dates | Reconcile source records; publish disagreement rather than averaging it |
| Shared specialist blocks several projects | Hidden demand and priority conflict | Show scenarios and consequences; do not promise capacity into existence |
| Sponsor changes direction | Mandate and component commitments diverge | Preserve history, assess impacts, and authorize a revised mandate |
| Adoption resistance persists | Affected roles, incentives, training, or feedback are unaddressed | Name change owners and signals; route org design when structure is the issue |

## Recovery

Run a bounded diagnostic. Reconstruct the original mandate, component outcomes, accepted
commitments, current forecasts, benefits assumptions, and material dependencies. Identify
the limiting constraint. Present options to reduce or stage scope, resequence, add useful
capacity, move dates, pause, reshape, or stop. Record the decision authority, consequences,
residual risks, and review trigger. Never erase the original baseline or call a forecast a
new commitment without authorization.

After three diagnostic passes with no new evidence, stop and report the exact missing input,
affected decision, owner, and escalation path. Do not run a ceremony loop indefinitely.