How easy or difficult to define Roles & Responsibility of an IT Program Manager in the current IT era?

How easy or difficult to define Roles & Responsibility of an IT Program Manager in the current IT era?

Program Manager plays a very important role in transforming a company’s strategy into reality. Every IT program is different in its size, complexity, stakeholder involvement, time critical with a direct impact on organization growth/reputation. It would require a program manager to have right skill, ability and knowledge for a successful program implementation, it is not necessary every single skill/responsibility is well defined in R&R of a program manager.

I am sharing the below key insights from my 2+ decades of IT Project/Program management experience that you don’t find them in a program manager R&R template.

a.    Ground Rules:

Every program needs a set of ground rules to be defined at the beginning of a program. It is important rather critical for a program manager to ensure these ground rules are being followed by all team members across the program without dropping a ball. In some programs, these ground rules are closely tracked in the beginning of the program, slowly ignored at a later part of the program.   

e.g. Sprint governance, team updating daily status/effort in jira without reminders, team responding to queries/emails promptly, updating WSR on time, version management, following the right process with no deviations etc.

b.    Mastery of Detail:

More mission critical programs demand a program manager to know granular details of a program. It is a default expectation from a program manager to answer all key questions in both internal and external leadership meetings with no/minimal dependency on the next level of PMs/Leads. A good program manager knows how to get these details without spending long hours.

e.g. Effectively managing scrum of scrums, being a good listener, asking the right set of questions, using collaborative tools such as MS Teams, Jira for better cross channel communication etc. 

c.     Diversified Knowledge

It is not necessary a program manager should master in every area, but the diversified knowledge across the domains (i.e. Business Domain, Technical, QA, Architecture, DevOps, Cloud tech etc.) always come handy in successfully executing a program. It helps the program manager better planning by considering all inter dependencies, decision making, identifying the risks with a clear mitigation etc.  

e.g. High level understanding of program business domain, attending DevOps/Cloud workshops, attending technical architecture walkthroughs with the team etc.

d.    Empathetic

Empathy is another key area often don’t find it in R&R of a program manager. It is an essential feature for a program manager to possess as it enables them to build strong relationships with their team members, internal and external stakeholders. Being empathetic helps in understanding the feelings, perspectives, and needs of their team members, leading to better communication, teamwork, and program outcomes.  By building strong relationships with their team members and stakeholders, program managers can create a positive work environment that fosters teamwork, innovation, and program success.

 

e.g. Being responsible for team work life balance, taking right decision making in the interest of the complete team, taking complete accountability for a program success or failure.

The views expressed here are my own and do not represent my organization.         

Please do share program manager skills that we often don’t see in the R&R template from your experience.