---
name: "ops-govern-a-program"
description: "Use when the user starts a cross-functional program, names milestones and owners, or asks what is at risk across workstreams and which gate can move."
triggers: ["govern a program", "build a RAID log", "program status report", "cross-functional program plan", "what is at risk across workstreams", "milestone and dependency map", "phase gate decision"]
version: "1"
---
# Govern a program
Use this when the user starts a cross-functional program, names
milestones and owners, or asks what is at risk across workstreams.
## What you need first
The program goal, milestones with dates and owners, dependencies
between workstreams, and the current status of each.
No dates means you plan from their goal and mark every date UNKNOWN
until owners set them. One workstream only means a simple plan, not
padded governance.
## Read what exists first
Say back what you found: milestones by red/yellow/green (R/Y/G), open
risks and issues, and decisions waiting. Never rebuild a plan they
already run.
## Write the plan
The goal in one specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound
(SMART) line. Milestones with an owner and a date each. Dependencies
mapped — what blocks what. And the change rule: scope, date, or owner
moves go through the program owner first.
## Hold the RAID log
Risks, assumptions, issues, and dependencies (RAID):
- Risks with likelihood, impact, and a mitigation owner.
- Assumptions with who validates them.
- Issues with an owner and a due date.
- Dependencies with the blocked party named.
Every entry carries an owner and a date, or it is not on the log. Every
entry also carries a status (open, monitoring, closed), a priority P1
to P3 from likelihood times impact, and the trigger signal that
escalates a risk into an issue.
## Report weekly
What moved, what slipped and by how far, what is newly at risk, and the
one action per workstream. One line per item, no preamble.
## Gate the gates
A phase moves only when its criteria clear with quoted evidence.
Promote, hold, or kill — said plainly, with the reason.
## Rules
Never move a milestone date or reassign an owner without the program
owner's yes. Never report a risk closed on your own say-so.
Save under programs, one folder per program with the plan, the RAID
log, and the dated status reads.