The first issue of The Journal of Project, Program and Portfolio Management will be published in Mid 2010 as a special issue on the topic of 'Program Management'. The guest editor for the special issue on Program Management is Michel Thiry who is internationally known for his practice and academic work in program management and has been invited as a keynote speaker on this topic at several international conferences.

The Journal of Project, Program and Portfolio Management is being published by the UTS ePress http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/ which publishes scholarly journals, books and conference proceedings. The titles published are all peer reviewed, DEST (Department of Education, Science and Training, Australia) compliant, and steadily growing in reputation and impact.

The Journal will accept both qualitative and quantitative research papers, theoretical and exploratory papers and practice case studies. Research papers are double blind peer reviewed; practice case studies are reviewed by two members of the editorial board of the Journal. This is an ideal opportunity, for academics, students and practitioners to share their knowledge, experience and research.

For the purpose of this special edition, we will define program management as:
“The governance and harmonized management of a number of projects and other actions to achieve stated business benefits and create value for the stakeholders.” (Thiry, 2008).

This is a fairly open definition which recognizes that programs comprise projects and other activities that need to be managed together to create sustainable change, either strategic or incremental, and that they aim to realize benefits, either strategic or tactical.

Typical topics could be:
a. Critique or comparison of existing Program Management Standards/Guides
b. Implementation and/or characteristics of the Project Management Office
c. The use and importance of Value Management in the management of programs
d. Competencies of Program Managers; comparison with project managers
e. Program management components: decision-making, benefits, stakeholders, governance
f. Influence and importance of other management areas on the development of program management: Strategic management, Agile management, systems thinking, complexity, governance, etc.

The Editorial Board will look for rigor in all academic proposals, research papers will have to clearly outline the research method and the data analysis process as well as the logical conclusion process; quantitative papers must clearly demonstrate data and sample relationship with hypothesis and qualitative papers will show a high degree of reflectiveness, both must demonstrate empirical validity and relevance of the chosen methodology to the subject. Theoretical and exploratory papers will be required to have a strong theoretical basis and explore new and original avenues or ideas for program management.

Practice case studies will generally be descriptive. They must be devoid of any commercial or marketing content and describe the use of an original method or technique or original results of the use of a known method or technique. Key factors in the selection of practice case studies will be: originality, innovativeness, significance for program management; rigor of the paper structure and contents and degree of reflection on the results obtained.

Original contributions will be between 3,500 to 5,000 words in length excluding references and appendices.

UTSePress journals use the Open Journal Systems (OJS) journal management and publishing system that has been developed by the Public Knowledge Project http://pkp.sfu.ca/about. The Public Knowledge Project is dedicated to improving the scholarly and public quality of research. It operates through a partnership among the Faculty of Education at the University of British Columbia, the Simon Fraser University Library, the School of Education at Stanford University, and the Canadian Centre for Studies in Publishing at Simon Fraser University.

The journal has a website where papers can be deposited and reviewed. Papers should be submitted for review by end February 2010.

If you are interested to submit a paper or case study contact: shankar.sankaran@uts.edu.au