The world of program management is unique and strange. It’s never the same for every program manager. If you are reading this, I am pretty sure you have at some point of time desired to be the program manager. Program Manager, this term is quite fascinating, and I too believe in this. This word carries a lot of weightage in the world of software product organization and if given a chance to be so, you believe to be the show-stopper, alas this is not so, what your mind keep saying. I know you would be smiling, but this is the fact, many of us know but finds tough.
Honestly, I got an opportunity to work on the similar lines, and this sounded too fascinating. But nobody ever said that you are a program manager, however, always conveyed me “You know the roles and responsibilities is more like what the Program Manager do.” Well, now I understood the real difference in communicating and playing the role in the Product based industry. Well, this is all together a different story, but let me closely tell you what I went through on this journey and experienced.
A Program Manager is always a victim of the strategic solutions that the organization is building to generate great revenue while making the customers happening. A program is always initiated either when the company wants to experiment and deliver the facts in the market, considering those as one of the best solutions in the long run or when the projects seriously need attention and a huge revenue is impacted. Both the ways its revenue and then one fine day, a Program manager is appointed to solve all this. Now this poor program manager would need to run show not just because he is qualified to do so with a quite known certification but also because they are believed to be the magicians who can just wand the magical stick and turn all those RED’s to GREEN.
While working on the agile and learning it through various approaches, I realized program management is more about the transparency. The word transparency stands to be a prerequisite before you even thought about getting into this role. Bring the right information with authenticity and conveying what is the actual status plays a key role in building trust between the customers and the organization. With transparency, an adaptation of the right practices is equally important. You as a program manager should not encourage inappropriate practices because this will cost you and the organization heavily in the long run. Make sure the teams you are working towards practice and adhere the right stuff and that’s what you need to keep inspecting throughout the delivery plan.
We all know we are valuable and the value we bring towards our organization and each of us are proud of this without a slightest doubt. But have you ever thought of what value we need to deliver to our customer? If not, then you must ponder. The way you build your value the same you as a program manager must bring value for your customer. You are not merely a person who comes to the organization, create the PPT, get the slides ready, present the status in red, green and amber and attend high profile meeting to make your presence feel, rather you are a person who runs the show and depict, vision, analysis and of course bring the facts to the table when everyone desires to have it, you claim to build and deliver it.