What is Program Governance?
Program governance is the framework of oversight: the governance board, phase-gate reviews, escalation thresholds, and decision rights that keep the program aligned with strategy. It decides when components start and stop, approves changes to the benefits case, and owns the "should this continue?" question.
Good governance is decisive and light; bad governance is a monthly meeting where nothing can be decided. The design goal is clear thresholds — what the program manager decides alone versus what goes to the board.
Worked example
A utility's smart-meter program board meets monthly: it approved accelerating the rollout component when early data showed higher-than-planned savings, and killed the in-house analytics component when a vendor product matured — reallocating its budget in the same meeting. Two structural decisions no single project could have made for itself.