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Clinical Project Management vs Clinical Programme Management
Clinical project management is the disciplined running of a study: plan, timeline, stakeholders, vendors, risks, issues and the report that tells a decision-maker where the study actually is. It fails when ownership is vague and when bad news waits for the next governance slide.
Clinical project management is enough when the work is one study with a clear critical path. It is not enough when several studies, countries and partners depend on each other.
Programme management looks across
Clinical programme management exists so that a delay in one country, a vendor used by three studies, or a regulatory sequence that gates access, is seen as a programme risk rather than as someone else's task. The questions change. Which dependency can move the access milestone? Which risk is being managed locally that should be on the programme register?
Sponsors who only buy project managers for a multi-country portfolio often discover the gap late. The studies are each "on track" in their own trackers, and the programme is not.