Chapter 10
Program Manager Roles and Responsibilities
We now turn the focus of attention to the program manager. As we stated in Chapter 1, the role of the program manager can vary greatly from company to company based upon how an organization implements its program management function. As Figure 10.1 illustrates, program managers in project-oriented organizations tend to fill an operational support role that focuses on coordination and facilitation of activities, while program managers in program-oriented organizations take on an expanded role that also includes team leadership and business management. Additionally, since program managers within program-oriented organizations are typically responsible for delivering a whole solution (Chapter 4), they must also take on a large integration role.
Figure 10.1 Variation of program manager roles.
In this chapter we focus on these three overriding roles of the program manager in program-oriented organizations: manager of the program business, integrator of multi-project work, and leader of a cross-discipline team. However, there is one important point we want to make before moving on. It is critical for the senior leaders of an enterprise to realize where they are operating with respect to the program management continuum and properly set the roles and responsibilities of their program managers accordingly.
The Business Manager
Companies survive by generating enough income to pay for their operating expenses. Companies grow by investing a portion of their income in vehicles that generate more revenue and decrease operating expenses. Companies sustain their growth by developing and executing strategies to obtain long-term increases in profitability. Therefore, the income a company uses to fund its long-term growth is the investment that is used to generate an intended return. For program-oriented companies, programs and their respective outputs are the strategic means for achieving their sustained growth and business viability.
This program investment model is analogous to a personal investment financial model. As an example, let's look at the investment situation for a private investor named Shannon. Shannon's salary is the income she uses to pay her living expenses and fund her growth in net worth. Without investing a portion of that income in higher-growth investment vehicles, her net worth grows very slowly. If Shannon wants to accelerate the growth of her net worth, she looks for investment vehicles that will generate additional income over and above her salary. If she develops a portfolio of mutual funds, for example, each fund becomes a vehicle for generating additional income. Collectively the portfolio of mutual funds Shannon owns provides continual positive ROI, if managed properly.
A single mutual fund within the private investor's portfolio is analogous to a single program that a business manager invests in to generate a positive return-on-investment for his or her business. Both a mutual fund and a program are vehicles for generating a higher rate of return. To extend this analogy, the private investor and the business manager both define short- and long-term goals they want to achieve and implement investment strategies for attainment of the goals. They both may turn their investment over to someone else to manage—the private investor employs an experienced mutual fund manager, and the business manager employs an experienced program manager. The mutual fund manager manages a collection of stocks that make up the mutual fund, and the program manager manages a collection of projects that make up the program.
As explained in Chapter 2, in many organizations the business manager cannot personally scale to manage the business on all of the programs within his or her portfolio, and therefore must allocate responsibility for managing the business aspects of programs to the program managers. The program manager in effect serves as the business manager proxy. Figure 10.2 illustrates this sharing of business responsibility.
Figure 10.2 Shared business responsibilities.
As the business manager proxy for a program, the program manager assumes his or her first role, managing the business on the program. This is what a senior vice president in charge of a business unit for a major aerospace and defense company said about the role of the program manager in his organization:
Program managers have one of the hardest jobs in our industry because they have to guide all business aspects of running their programs by walking a fine line between delivering profits to the company and delivering value to the customer.
Managing the Business
There are several elements the program manager is responsible for in order to manage the business of a program, as depicted in Figure 10.3.
Figure 10.3 Elements of managing the business.
Each of these seven elements of managing the program business is critical for a program manager who is operating in the business manager quadrant of the program management continuum (Figure 10.1). However, for program managers who are operating in other quadrants of the continuum, not all of the seven elements in Figure 10.3 are always relevant. Relevancy is determined by the expectations and definition of the program manager's role by the senior leaders of an organization.
Aligning to Business Strategy
The program manager normally serves as the primary business strategist on a program by continually focusing on the strategic business goals driving the need for the program and for its output.
We often see a common pitfall where strong alignment to the strategies of a business is not established prior to program business case development. Instead, the alignment is attempted somewhere between business case approval and capability release, creating a higher probability of misalignment between the program and strategic objectives. It is never a pleasant experience for the members of a business unit when they realize that the strategic return on their investment will not be realized due to a misalignment between strategy and execution.
During program execution the program manager continually monitors the business environment to ensure the program remains strategically viable. This is most important for programs with long cycle times, which have a greater risk of strategic shifts due to environmental changes. At any point in which misalignment between the program objectives and the strategic goals develops, the program manager has the responsibility for bringing it to the attention of the senior management team for discussion and resolution.
Managing the Business Case
The program business case establishes the business feasibility and viability of a program and is the primary tool for the program manager to manage the business aspects of a program (Chapter 6). Managing to the business case becomes a critical piece of the program vision and forms the basis of the business contract between the program manager and the senior management team of the company.
The role of the program manager is to drive the creation of the business case based upon the knowledge, information, and data available at the time. Since there are many unknowns to comprehend when a business case is created, establishing and documenting the set of assumptions that the business case is built upon is crucial. For the business case to remain accurate and viable, the program manager needs to continually manage and update the business case as additional information and data become available.
Part of the business case involves developing a robust set of business success factors and metrics that are used to determine the viability of the program. Collectively, the business success factors define business success for the program. They serve as the business objectives that the program team works to achieve, as well as the primary measure of checks and balances to guide decisions and to evaluate environmental changes. The program strike zone (Chapter 9) is a useful tool for managing a program to the business case.
At any point in the program cycle in which the business case no longer looks viable, the program manager must communicate that to the senior sponsors of the program. This, at times, can be difficult due to emotional and organizational culture factors, but as the business manager proxy on a program, the program manager must manage the return on investment. This usually means managing the program to success, but it can also mean cutting the losses as early as possible and recommending to terminate the program if the investment is no longer viable.
Managing the Program Finances
Once a program is approved or awarded funding, the program manager becomes responsible for managing the investment funds. The funds may come from various sources such as lending institutions, venture capital companies, shareholders, customers, or internal funds. This involves managing the program cash flow and managing the cost of goods sold. It is recommended that a program manager have a financial analyst on the IPT to help manage the financial aspects of a program, as managing program finances can be a time-consuming activity. Great benefits can be gained if the program manager forges a strong working relationship with his or her financial analyst (see “Knowing the Numbers”).
Managing the program cash flow involves more than just monitoring the total available program budget. It involves understanding and monitoring program expenditures and income on a periodic basis. All companies have to make money to stay in business, and the ability to maintain a positive cash flow is a critical component of an organization's success. This is especially true for smaller companies, start-ups, and any company that is cash constrained.1
Once a program is funded, management of cash flow for the program becomes the responsibility of the program manager. It is risky to monitor the program budget in total. If, for example, the budget was depleted three-quarters of the way through a program, the team would suddenly be in trouble with respect to program finances, and most likely work would come to a halt (at least temporarily, if not permanently). For this reason, the program manager along with the program financial analyst should create a cash flow plan for the budget and then manage program finances to the plan. When a periodic cash flow plan is established (Figure 10.4), deviations from the plan are much easier to react to and manage.
Figure 10.4 Example of program cash flow.
Understanding the billing and payment terms of the company, its suppliers, and its customers should be understood and reflected in the cash flow plan. There is a time delay for both expenditures and income generated by a program due to billing cycles. For example, the organization sponsoring a program may have payment terms of 90 days after receipt of goods from its suppliers. This means that expenditures for the program are delayed by three months. Likewise, revenue generated by the program will also be subject to the payment terms of a company's customers.
Knowing when to ask for assistance from the senior management team of the business is an important part of cash flow. Short-term and long-term program cash flow assistance can only be provided by senior management, and the program manager must be willing to work with the executive team to secure the finances needed to continue the program.
Managing the cost of goods sold is also a critical aspect of managing the program finances. The cost of goods sold includes the bill of materials and the cost associated with manufacturing, assembling, or otherwise physically creating a solution. The cost of goods sold is deducted from the revenue generated for each unit sold or used in the case of a service. Minimizing this cost enables a company to retain a larger percentage of the sales revenue or cost savings generated once the solution is delivered.
The program manager and his or her program team are responsible for driving the future cost of goods sold to a minimum. Many cost versus performance trade-off decisions are made during a program to generate an optimum cost of goods that achieves the performance requirements of the program. The program manager's role is to set aggressive, yet realistic, goals for the program team. Then he or she must measure progress toward achievement of the cost goals using program metrics (Chapter 8).
Managing Program Resources
Aligning a program to the strategic goals of a company, developing a viable business case, and managing the program finances are critically important aspects of the program manager's role. However, if he or she cannot secure and maintain the resources to complete the work, the strategic, business, and financial goals of a program will not be achieved. Much of the funds invested in a program are utilized to pay for the resources needed to complete the work. This includes both human and nonhuman resources. Resource cost is by far the largest consumer of the investment, in many cases constituting more than 75 percent of the program budget. For this reason, effective management of the program resources is a critical aspect of the business management role of the program manager.
To be completely successful, a program must be adequately resourced. There is a high level of uncertainty with respect to resource utilization when a program is initiated. For that reason, resource management needs to be viewed as a continuous process.2 A common pitfall that we have observed is that a lot of effort goes into generating a program resource plan and gaining commitment from resource managers to fulfill the resource demand of the program. However, once the plan is approved, focus shifts to other aspects of the program, and resource constraints begin to mount. The program manager must manage resource utilization throughout the life of a program.
Resource management involves the program manager understanding the skills, experience levels, and number of resources needed for a program. The program manager is first responsible for ensuring the core team is fully staffed. This means each project has a qualified project manager in place and represented on the core team. Further, each critical function supporting the program should have a qualified representative. Secondly, the program manager is responsible for working with each project manager to be sure that his or her team is adequately staffed. When resource constraints are identified on a project, the program manager assists the project manager in resolving the constraint as effectively as possible and, if necessary, adjusting the project plan and program plan to take the constraint into account. Resolution usually entails adjustments to program costs, resources, time, performance, or quality goals. At any point in a program in which resource gaps adversely affect the program success factors, the risk must be communicated to the senior management team for assistance in resolution.
Managing Business Risk
The financial world teaches us that all investment involves some level of risk. Developing new capabilities and driving organizational change transitions are no different. Various levels of risk taking are necessary if a company is intent on being a leader, or even a strong contender in its industry. Market leaders understand that they must run directly toward, instead of away from, risk to put distance between themselves and their competitors. This means that programs can have a high level of business risk associated with them. Failure to identify and understand the risks, or uncertainties, can lead to substantial loss for the enterprise. The role of the program manager is to protect the company's investment in the program through effective management of the business risks involved.
Risk is inherent in every program—it comes with the territory. Good risk management will not make the risk associated with a program go away; it merely helps to ensure that the program team will not be blindsided with a problem to which they cannot respond.3 The program manager must be aware that the failure of a single project within a program can cause the entire program to fail. This requires that the program manager empower the project managers to manage the project-level risks and focus his or her efforts on identifying and managing the program-level risks (Chapter 7). The role of the program manager is to be an advocate for effective risk management practices on the program and ensure that it becomes an institutionalized practice on the program. The program manager needs to keep the entire program team engaged in risk management practices, because risk management becomes useless if only a small number of program team members effectively practice it.
Managing Intellectual Property
Intellectual Property (IP) may have significant strategic and commercial value to a company. Much of the IP generated by companies engaged in product, service, or infrastructure development is done so within the context of development programs. For this reason, a crucial element of managing the business on a program involves the proper management of the IP created. Depending upon the type of IP created, this may include making sure that the proper patents, trademarks, and copyrights are obtained (see “Intellectual Property of Another Kind”).
IP is the know-how that is produced by our creative minds. In particular, it is the codified content, data, and knowledge of doing something in a better way. It is also the knowledge to figure out that this better way may be very profitable if it can be commercialized. If a company patents its technology, for example, it would prevent others from using it without paying for its use.
Multiple players such as technologists, managers, functional managers, directors, legal experts, and officers all take part in managing IP. However, program managers must develop a sense for the following questions:
- Is there a competitor who could use the IP developed on my program to compete against us?
This means that the program manager should know the market and customers and have a good understanding of the competitive landscape.
- If so, what does that mean to my program's business?
Again, good knowledge of market, customers, and competitors, along with the program business case, will help the program manager understand the answer to that question.
- What can be done to protect the IP? There are multiple ways to protect IP. The trick is to determine the best approach for protecting the IP based upon its type.
The program manager should use this knowledge to ensure that all players involved play the game in a way that benefits the program because, ultimately, the program manager owns the program success.
Monitoring the Market
Besides a strong internal focus on the business of the program, the program management role also requires an external focus on the market and continual monitoring of market conditions. The market consists of the customers who buy a solution, the end users who will use it, and the competitors who are trying to sell their solutions to the same customers. There are many examples of program managers who have focused their attention solely on the effective use of their resources to achieve the goals of the program—all the while being unaware of changes in the external market that have left their solution ineffective and unattractive to the customers and end users.
The best program managers continually monitor the state of the external environment to check if the business objectives and strategies that the program is based upon are still achievable. In particular, to keep a program feasible from the business and strategic perspective, the program manager should be fully aware of the current state of the market in which the business operates and also be aware of emerging trends. To determine the current state and trends of the market, the program manager needs to be engaged with the customer and bring the customer information back to the program team. It is crucial that program managers understand the wants and needs of their customers and end users to obtain business success for the program. For an example of a creative approach to garnering end-user information, see “From the Design Room to the Showroom.”
In addition to success for the program, a close relationship with customers also puts the program manager in a position to cultivate new business opportunities for the enterprise. This is especially true in situations where a program is executed via a contractual arrangement. Contract changes and extensions can become opportunities for additional business.
Program managers also need to understand who the competitors are and what they have to offer. To create a competitive advantage, it requires that competitors are known, that the competitor's solutions are understood, that the solution being developed by the program team can be compared to competitor's solutions, and that the differences between the solutions and the value proposition of the program team's solution can be explained to potential customers.
This exercise is often conducted by program teams but is treated as a one-time event either as part of the concept approval or the business case. However, to ensure competitive viability of the capability under development, this exercise needs to be repeated periodically throughout the life of a program—at least at every decision checkpoint (Chapter 6).
The Master Integrator
Some years ago one of the authors attended an industry seminar at a highly respected university in the U.S. Before the seminar began he had a brief conversation with a person named Mary who worked for Corning (the glass manufacturer). During the conversation Mary asked what the author did for the company he was working for, to which he told her that he was a program manager. “Ah, the master integrator,” was Mary's reply.
This was the first time we heard the term master integrator in relation to program management, but we continue to use it in our work because it accurately describes the second primary role of the program manager.
So why does a program manager have to function as a master integrator? The answer to that question is contained in Chapter 4. The program manager is responsible for providing a whole solution made up of many pieces. A program has to be decomposed into a number of projects representing smaller elements of specialized work, and then work to reintegrate the output and outcomes of the specialized work into the holistic solution.
A Focus on Integration
On occasion we have the opportunity to evaluate the current state of the program management function within an organization. One of the first things we try to do is determine if the organization is primarily project-oriented or program-oriented (Chapter 1). Observance of the roles of the firm's program managers provides a quick analysis—specifically, observing if the program managers are behaving as administrators, coordinators, or integrators. A predominantly administration or coordination role for the program manager usually indicates that the organization is project-oriented.
In project-oriented organizations, programs tend to be characterized as a loose grouping of functional specialists who operate within their area of specialty, and functional agendas and goals take precedence over a common vision and goal. It is also common to see a high level of dysfunction among the functional departments, and between the functions and the program office. This situation is normally an indication that the integration role of the program manager is not well understood or being performed within the business.
By contrast, in organizations where the program manager has an integration role and responsibility, it can be observed that the various functions and specialties are working collaboratively toward a common vision and goal and are doing so to create a holistic solution.
The disaggregation and reintegration of work is the centerpiece of integration and systems thinking. By performing the role of master integrator on a program, the program manager, who is focused on the whole solution, is in effect working as a systems integrator (from a programmatic perspective rather than a technological perspective). The example in Figure 10.5 illustrates this point.
Figure 10.5 Integration as part of systems thinking.
The program manager, in the illustration, oversees the disaggregation of the whole solution (only a few of the elements are shown in the example), into a program architecture composed of multiple projects and enabling components. He or she then oversees the integration of work output from each of the components to create the consolidated whole solution. The true value and benefits of the program output can only be realized when the activities associated with each of the projects and enablers are integrated together into a holistic solution for the customer.
Managing Interdependencies
Referring to Figure 4.8 in Chapter 4, we consider the horizontal dimension of a program where the program manager is responsible for synchronizing the work flow of the constituent projects across the specialist functions of the firm. This is accomplished through cross-project interface definition, coordination of all program activities, driving collaborative communication on the program, and synchronizing the delivery of the project interdependencies.
While the role of each project manager on a program is to manage the creation and delivery of their project deliverables and outcomes, an important aspect of the integration role of the program manager is overseeing the hand-off of deliverables between project teams on the program. This output-input relationship creates a network of interdependencies that has to be established and managed at the program level.
Establishing the network of interdependencies is best accomplished through the practice of program mapping (Chapter 7), and the creation of a program map. The program manager can use the program map to manage the cross-project interdependencies during the execution cycles of the program.
Creating Synchronization over Time
For effective integration to occur, synchronization of activities over time is necessary. However, management of time on a program is usually not a matter of managing the tasks associated with each of the constituent projects. To do so would mean that the program manager is mired in detail. Rather, managing the program timeline involves ensuring the work outcomes and deliverables are occurring as planned and mapped.
Detailed schedule management is the focus at the project level, and summary, or integrated time management, is the focus at the program level. This requires a modular approach to time management where the schedule is disaggregated and partitioned according to the projects. Schedule details for each module are worked out by the project managers and project teams and then integrated by the program manager to gain the full perspective of the program timeline and critical synchronization points.
The program manager should keep in mind that the most detailed schedule is not necessarily the best schedule. Too much detail can divert attention to one aspect of a program—the schedule—and away from the other critical aspects of managing a program and leading a team. If the program manager focuses on the critical synchronization points occurring over time and lets the project managers focus on the detailed schedule for their respective projects, a good balance for effective timeline management is achieved.
Leading the Program Team
In program management, like any other discipline, there is a distinct difference between good program managers and great program managers. Good program managers are those that can manage the business and operational aspects of a program. Great program managers are those that have the ability to combine strong management skills with strong leadership skills. The primary differentiator between good and great is one's ability to build a high-performing program team and lead the team toward the achievement of the business objectives by establishing a vision, or end state, and then guiding the work of the entire team toward that vision. At the same time the leader helps the team to establish pride in their work as well as knowledge of how their work contributes to the program goals.5
The program manager uses his or her management skills to utilize the physical resources (human skills, raw materials, and technology) of the enterprise to ensure that the work of the team is well planned, is performed on schedule and within cost, is delivered with a high level of quality, and is executed productively and efficiently. However, because program managers rarely have resources reporting to them directly, they must use strong leadership skills to build relationships to influence, focus, and motivate the program team. In doing so, program managers utilize the emotional and spiritual resources of the organization to create and deliver the business benefits expected by senior management.
For the program manager, this means that he or she is responsible for keeping the team of functional specialists performing as a cohesive group to achieve the objectives of the program, while helping each project team (and individual) understand how their element contributes to the creation of the whole solution. Program managers must grapple with four essential issues while building and leading the program team: 1) establishing the team vision, goals, and objectives, 2) defining the roles and responsibilities for each member of the team, 3) instituting the team norms and work procedures, and 4) managing personal relationships.6
Establishing a Sense of “We” versus “Me”
Pulling a group of functional specialists into a cohesive, effective team requires the team members to perform as a single entity and identify with the program more than their functional specialty and that they remain focused on a common vision of what they are trying to achieve.
The program vision defines the end state that the program is trying to achieve. As discussed in Chapter 3, it is the whole solution and the set of business goals that the program is commissioned to achieve that is commonly referred to as “the big picture.” Everything that happens on a program should do so in the context of the big picture, or program vision.7
One of the essentials of strong leadership is that the leader pulls upon the energy and talents of the team, rather than pushing, ordering, or manipulating people. Leadership is not about imposing the will of the leader, but rather about creating a compelling vision that people are willing to support and exert whatever energy is needed to realize it.8
Establishing the right level of metrics and success factors is vitally important to establish “we” versus “me” thinking for a program team—in particular, the business success factors. Each project team within a program needs to focus on their key performance indicators, but consistently communicating the business success factors for the program to the project teams focuses the entire program team on success criteria that can only be achieved by the collective success of the team.
The program vision, program objectives, metrics, and the business success criteria are devices that the program manager uses to pull the team together and to keep the project specialists focused on the program goals, rather than just the goals of their specific function. It is the basis of empowerment that allows the program manager to establish power of influence, rather than positional power.
Establishing Team Chemistry
A program team may consist of the top talent within an organization, but they will not reach a high level of performance without a certain bonding of spirit and purposefulness. It is this bonding, or team chemistry, that motivates team members to work together collaboratively for the common success of the team.
Of course, when a group of people form a team, their personalities may not immediately gel. Acculturation of personalities, ideas, shared values, and goal alignment takes time as well as intentional effort (sometimes considerable effort) on the part of the program manager. People from a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences will bring different behaviors, routines, values, and ideas about the work of the team. The program manager must embrace this diversity of people on his or her team as individual members that make up a collective work unit, and act as a coach and role model for the rest of the team to help them embrace the value of diversity. What the team must learn is that there is great benefit to having differences in personality, values, opinions, and ideas working toward an optimal business solution.
There are a number of things that successful program managers do to accelerate the establishment of team chemistry. These include establishing team norms, fostering social presence, and celebrating team successes. We are firm believers in the value of bringing the team together for face-to-face collaboration exchanges whenever possible. This investment in time and sometimes money pays significant dividends in establishment of team chemistry.
Establishing Team Norms
With his or her team members, a program manager can lead and facilitate a series of discussions on how the team will perform its work and conduct itself. In particular, focus on acceptable and unacceptable behaviors, meeting types and forums needed, communication preferences, how decisions will be made, and reporting methods, messaging, and frequency. Make sure to gain agreement on the norms and then set the ground rules and expectation that the team behaves and acts in a way that upholds the norms.
Foster Social Presence
To prevent some members of the team from becoming “invisible,” make sure that all team members know one another and continue to foster connections. This is especially important for geographically distributed teams. Initial introductions are critical, and must go beyond the usual statement of name, functional group, and their understanding of the role one plays on the team. It's also more effective to ask each individual to describe his or her expertise and professional background, as well as something interesting and significant about them. Some program managers have created simple social networking websites for their teams that provide member profiles. The goal of the program manager here is to create a team environment. So, getting to know one another (professionally and personally) is important and necessary to achieve team cohesion.
Celebrate Success as a Team
Making sure that the entire team participates in team celebrations goes a long way toward focusing team members on team accomplishments over individual accomplishments. The celebrations do not have to be large or even formal in nature to be appropriate and appreciated by the team members. Successful program managers look for opportunities to recognize team accomplishments throughout the duration of the program at key milestones, major events throughout the calendar, and even as surprises to the team to help manage program-related pressures.
Building and Sustaining Trust
Trust within a team is the foundation of effective collaboration. For a team to reach its highest level of performance, much attention has to be paid to building trust between the team members and between the team and the program manager, sponsors, and other stakeholders.
In his book The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John Maxwell uses the analogy of building trust as either putting change into your pocket or paying it out.9 Each time a program manager forms a new team, he or she begins with a certain amount of change in his or her pocket, representing the inherent trust a person receives from his or her position as the program manager. As the program progresses, the program manager either continues to accumulate change in his or her pocket by building trust across the team, or finds that the pocket begins to empty when trust is depleting.
Table 10.1 lists the factors that both destroy and create trust for a program team. Obviously, the team leader is best served by acting upon the trust creators and avoiding the trust destroyers.
Table 10.1 Trust creator and destroyers
| Trust Creators | Trust Destroyers |
| Act with integrity | Demonstrate inconsistency between words and actions |
| Communicate openly and honestly | Withhold information or support |
| Focus the team on shared goals | Put personal gain over team gain |
| Show respect to team members as equal partners | Engage in lies, sabotage, and scapegoating |
| Listen with an open mind | Listen with a closed mind |
Building strong relationships between team members is also an important factor in enhancing and sustaining trust on a program team, especially later in the life of the team. In many ways, program managers are the glue that holds teams together. Establishing trust in themselves and between team members based on demonstrated trustworthiness can be a difficult task. They should begin by setting the expectation that the teams perform within the confines of the elements that demonstrate one is worthy of mutual trust:
- Perform competently
- Act with integrity
- Follow through on commitments
- Display concern for the well-being of others
- Behave consistently
The program manager must treat trust as his or her greatest asset and realize that it is important to consistently model the behaviors that exemplify competence, connection, and character in leading the team. The best program managers we have encountered realize the need to go beyond establishing expectations that the team demonstrate the trust building behaviors stated above. They also model the behaviors on a daily basis by always standing behind and supporting their teams, never demonstrating favoritism, and accepting full accountability for the actions and results of their teams.
Making Tough Decisions
There can be thousands of decisions, large and small, that a program manager will encounter during the course of a program. To prevent even a small number of these decisions from being barriers to progress, a program manager needs to be proficient in collecting all necessary facts, analyzing the pertinent data, and then driving to a decision. Nothing can be more frustrating and paralyzing to a team than waiting for a decision that prevents forward progress.10
The ability of the program manager to make timely decisions will be considerably influenced by their degree of experience and their ability to think of the program from a holistic perspective. By a holistic perspective, we mean that program decisions need to be aligned with the objectives of the program and the strategic goals of the business. Losing sight of the strategic reasons for a program while making a series of large and small decisions is a primary reason why some programs become misaligned with the strategic goals of the business and ultimately fail.
As a safeguard, the program manager must establish boundary conditions that serve as guard rails to prevent goal misalignment. The more concisely and clearly the boundary conditions for a decision are stated, the greater the likelihood that the decision will be effective in accomplishing the direction that is needed and ensuring that the direction is consistent with the business goals driving the need for the program. The program strike zone (Chapter 9) is an important decision support tool that helps to keep program decisions in alignment with the business goals.
Empowering the Program Team
With leadership, comes power. To lead, one must have a relationship with people who are willing to follow. For the program manager, those people are the IPT core team specifically and more generally the entire program team. Every leader's potential is determined by the abilities and actions of the people who are closest to him or her. If the leader's inner circle of people are strong and capable, the leader can make a big impact within an organization.11 This is true for the program manager whose inner circle consists of the members of the core team.
As discussed in Chapter 5, careful selection of the IPT core team members is critically important for this reason. First and foremost, program managers should select core team members who are experts in the function that they represent within the organization. The second critical criteria for core team selection is a person's ability to step outside of their area of expertise to effectively collaborate with the other members of the team toward the achievement of the program vision. One of the most significant ingredients for program success is the cooperation and collaboration between the project teams within the program, in which everyone understands that they cannot succeed unless everyone else succeeds.12
Empowerment is the sharing of power from one person to another and granting them influence and authority to take responsibility and make decisions within their sphere of work. The program manager empowers the core team by giving away a portion of his or her own power to the project managers and functional representatives on the core team. Thus, the project manager and functional representative will succeed by exercising control over their own decisions and resources. This is an important concept for a program manager to grasp. Nothing is more disempowering than giving the core team a lot of responsibility for program success, then not empowering them to work autonomously. Effective leaders get the most out of the members of their inner circle by treating them in a way that bolsters their self-confidence and provides them with the necessary resources to succeed.13 A strong sense of self-confidence makes it possible for the IPT core team members to take control of their portion of the program, which allows the program manager to focus on the big picture.
Establishing an environment of “no fear” is also a critical element in developing a team's confidence. As team members are granted greater empowerment, they will begin to act more on their own and rely less on the direction of the program manager. They will take on a greater sense of responsibility for their work output, become more comfortable with making decisions and solving problems on their own, begin to act proactively instead of reacting to change, and ultimately become more motivated to succeed.
As a senior program manager for a major aerospace company told us, “A no-fear environment is needed so people don't have to fear coming to the program manager with the real answer, especially if it's not a pleasant answer. You have to let people stumble a bit in order for them to learn and gain confidence.”
The section titled “The Leadership Story of a World-Class Program Manager” provides an example of personal leadership principles one practicing program manager has established for himself through his experiences in leading many program teams.