The magic of Program Management

Program Management: the often reactively assigned role that’s critical for business efficiency and scalability. The textbook definition is typically “execution.” When companies are small, the role of execution is usually shared by people in roles like Product Management, Engineering Managers, and other leaders. There comes a breaking point, though, when businesses grow to an extent that a dedicated resource is needed to coordinate execution across roles, orgs, business units, and products.

Program Managers (PgMs) or Technical Program Managers (TPMs) can be largely underutilized. It’s easier to assign a PgM resource reactively, when you realize there’s a need for large-scale coordination–in other words, it’s become chaotic enough to warrant a clean-up crew. Alternatively, sheer magic happens in proactive, strategic Program Management.

The 3-Legged Stool

Let’s examine 3 facets of program management:

1. Tools of the trade: status dashboards, trackers, processes, coordination. While necessary, these can be fairly dry and run the risk of being used as reactive measures. But: what are the data and signals in dashboards and schedules being used for? Do you have a closed feedback loop to proactively get a step ahead of the next problem? Are you asking your program manager to hound others for status reports for the sake of it?
2. Proactive planning: engaging with cross-functional leaders to plan out the next X months/years products. Although PgMs are more active in the execution phase, engaging early on in the strategic planning cycle is critical to align resources and orgs. Similarly, the strategic planners should be involved in the execution phase at a lesser extent.
3. Enabling: PgMs often know where the skeletons are hidden in the deep corners of the closet. They talk to cross-functional team members, have a wide umbrella view of how the company operates, and who to go to to get something done.

#1 is well understood. Strong companies realize the value of #2 and #3–and it’s these latter two that motivate PgMs. It’s not so great of a job to be a clean-up crew tasked with reporting. Smoothing the runway for an efficient product launch, to avoid friction–now that’s motivating!

PgMs reduce friction by preventing issues before they become issues

“Sometimes when you’ve done something well, people won’t know you’ve done anything at all.” Sometimes the role is understated. The adage “reward effort, not outcome” is difficult to measure when the outcome is nebulous avoidance.

PgMs aim for the high score in Tetris

Execute the right pieces, at the right place, at the right time. That includes:

• Roles & responsibilities: what someone is supposed to do
• Personalities: how someone acts and operates
• Business strategy: what the company wants
• Development and operations: how the company acts and operates

PgMs have a wide field of view

In order to launch complicated products, PgMs interact with a lot of cross-functional teams. There’s a significant breadth and depth needed to design efficient operations–and PgMs are motivated by not having fires.

PgMs balance business goals with development reality

PgMs monitor commits vs reality, and keep that regular temperature check. It’s most often the case that launches are “delayed,” but delayed is a relative term–was the initial estimate realistic, or was it a wishful business goal? PgMs have a strong grounding and antennae-twitching gauge for realism.

PgMs have a heartbeat on the health of the team

PgMs interface with everyone regularly, on a more 1:1 basis than many. They can see who’s getting burned out, whether the team can survive a V2 launch while simultaneously addressing V1’s support needs. They think about what optimizations can be done as the product matures into a different lifecycle stage. They think about automations and internal
tools to help everyone. Scaling and efficiency are PgMs innate drivers.

PgMs juggle needs across coexisting product lifecycle stages

• What is the company’s portfolio of products viewed thru a lens of lifecycle stage? May have a concurrent sunset + just launched product + new product line.
• Nail the dirty, dirty details of transition plans, sunsetting features, with cross-functional teams. Ask the hard questions.
• Will customers be happy or complain with a product transition? What’s the support plan?
• TPMs may not go deep into each area but Shepherd the entire effort, ensuring a “One Team” push, not a marketing stream + Product stream + Legal stream…

Vision Quest to Reality

The key with program management is to get ahead. That’s proactive, closed feedback loops. That’s assigning a PgM upstream before issues are issues. That’s listening to your PgM’s antennae when they say a date sounds unrealistic.

The magic comes with a solid partnership between strategy and execution, so one doesn’t hand off to the other.