Program vs. Project Management in Program Manager Position
The other day my friend asked me about differences between program management and project management in a software company such as Microsoft. After our conversation I thought about sending her links to articles that discuss the topic in detail. To my surprise, all the articles I was able to find were just discussing theoretical definitions as provided by the PMI in their PMBOK Guide. Perhaps in some companies program managers perform activities as described by PMI, but I have yet to learn about any such company in the software industry. The role of the program manager and PM responsibilities in software development can be more simply defined and differentiated. So, I have decided to summarize the differences between program and project management, based on what I have learned from experience.
First, it is important to point out that project management is about 1/3 of the program manager’s role in software companies. The program manager does have to create and execute on project plans, create and manage schedules, perform risk management, issue and change management, communicate with all stakeholders and perform all other activities usually expected from project managers.
Because of this overlap in these two roles, there are several common skills shared by project managers and program managers:
- Effective communication in both verbal and written form;
- Excellent presentation skills with the ability to adjust content and form of presentation for various audiences;
- Leadership skills because PMs have to establish themselves as leaders and lead a group of people to achieve common goals;
- Strong interpersonal communication and team building skills such that PMs can build strong connections with all members of the team.
- Attention to details with ability to understand when to drill down and when to let experts solve a problem.
However, there are two more responsibilities held by a program manager that are not expected of project managers:
1. Bring the team together around the product’s vision, strategy and business goals. Program managers focus on defining the big picture and building support for it within the team. They effectively communicate why the company is developing the product and how it benefits both customers and the company. They need to ensure that everyone involved in the product understands this, buys into the idea and is excited to work on it. Their goal is to align priorities of different teams and in different projects such that deliverables support business goals.
2. Design the product. Program Managers have to get to the details of the product and make sure the final deliverables support the overall product vision and goals. They need to make sure accurate data is available during a discussion around what design is best. They seek market data and interact with customers. They partner with designers, developers, customer support and many other functional departments of the company to build one picture of what should be built and exactly how. They write detailed product specifications to bring all stakeholders on one page about what the product is and how it is built. PMs often influence design in many product components and in many projects to ensure the complete end to end customer experience with the product.
To be clear, nothing stops a project manager from being involved in defining product vision and strategy or work on the detailed design of features in a product. But, in my experience, this level of involvement is not expected from them, when it is very much expected from program managers to perform all the responsibilities of a project manager in addition to having an impact on a product’s vision and design of the product features.
Another way to look at it is that the project manager is assigned to a project at the sign off on a project statement, while a program manager is fully engaged with the team that defines the project from the start to make sure the project supports the business goals of the company. Once a project manager is assigned, a program manager can focus on defining other projects. Often it is the same person who switches from program management to project management for the duration of the project. This is why program managers have to posses all project management skills and at the same time be much more than a project manager.
This question seems to pop up a lot in linked in and other group sites. I like the way you’ve defined it as the answer to the questions, but you’ve highlighted the underlying challenge to providing a useful overall answer: project manager and program manager mean different things in different organizations.
The key is in your last sentence. No matter what the actual definition is within an organization, program managers have to be way more than just a project manager.
Thanks.
Totally agree with you that project manager and program manager mean different things in different companies. At some point, I have even received an invitation to a survey from PMI in which they were asking about what I as a PM do. It would be very interesting to learn about the data they collected. I plan to keep researching this area in several ways and publish updates with my findings.
Hi, Nick,
I enjoyed reading your post. Some of my thoughts
According to the PMBOK Guide definition, program management is the way to coordinate multiple projects that are connected in some ways. A program is “group of related project”, and the purpose of program management is to optimize the resources and approaches to manage interrelated projects.
For example, if a software development project is too big, we can make it a program, within this program there are projects: design, coding, implementation, testing etc.
Therefore, I often consider a program is a very big project, which we divide into small projects in order to manage effectively. In this case, for a PM, a skills set required for program management and project management may be the same. A project manager just need to be senior enough to manage a program
Son Nguyen
http://pmreviews.org
@nlongson
Hi Son,
Thanks for the comment! I agree with you that in many areas the skill set of a program manager and a project manager is the same, as I pointed out in the post. At the same time, I find PMI definition of program management too general and far from reality. In particular, it implies that project managers report to program manager. In my opinion, PMI’s definition of a program manager primarily applies to a very senior group/product manager. In practice, program manager run and manage an area where they run projects by themselves or they collaborate with other PMs without reporting structures. But at the end, as Perry pointed out, what a program manager does differs from company to a company.
Thanks,
Nick
Hi Nick,
Good read, however a question comes to mind: how does product management fit in all this? From my understanding product management is either technical or market related and should be the ax between the (technical) project manager and the business world and/or client. The program manager, on the other side overviews the product managers and the whole product portfolio.
I guess this adds to what Perry was saying: project manager and program manager mean different things in different organizations.
Just adding my 2 cents.
Well said Roel: it all depends on the organization.