![]() Rather than day-to-day communication, you’ll be involved in resolving conflicts, building consensus and influencing decisions at the senior management level. As a program manager, you’ll be expected to interface with senior leaders and stakeholders across departments. Programs are usually initiated and driven by senior leaders. Program Managers Have to Deal With Senior Stakeholders He/she doesn’t have to stay aligned with the organization’s broader financial calendar.Ĥ. A project manager will be given a budget and a deadline. Projects, on the other hand, exist mostly in isolation. That is, if you’re a program manager, you’ll have to deliver quarterly results. Program Management is Tied to the Financial Calendarīecause of the strategic nature of programs, the program manager is tied to the organization’s financial calendar. Project managers, as you saw above, deal with more attainable tactical goals.ģ. ![]() “Digitize sales collateral” and “Enable sales to track deliveries” are tactical goals.Ī program manager is responsible for meeting these strategic goals. “Develop a digital strategy” is a strategic goal. You might add/remove projects to the program as long as it fits the strategic requirements.Ī strategic goal will have several smaller tactical goals attached to it. It can have dozens (or more) of smaller projects, all with varying durations. Once the project is finished, the team disbands and resources are redistributed to other projects.Ī program, on the other hand, is meant to meet a business' long-term strategic goals. Let’s look at some of the differences between program managers and project managers in more detail below:Īs the PMI defines above, a project is a temporary undertaking. That is: project managers deal with tactical responsibilities of managing deliverables, not defining strategy. You’ll notice that the job emphasizes execution and delivery. Now contrast that with a job description for a project manager: That’s a quintessential feature of program management - it is longer and strategic in nature. Notice how the job responsibilities underscore the need to work with senior leaders across multiple departments? The easiest way to understand these differences is to look at job descriptions for these two positions.įor example, here’s a job description for a program manager: While this admittedly crude definition works, there are several nuanced differences between program managers and project managers. You can think of his/her responsibilities as "meta-project management". In the next section, I’ll look at the difference between program managers and project managers in more detail.Ī program is made up of several projects.Ī program manager, thus, manages multiple projects. Using specific management techniques, knowledge and skills to manage the program.Grouping together related projects as a program, and.Managing both the projects as a single program would allow the marketing team and the development team to interface better, leading to better overall results. In the above example, the design and development of a website would be informed by the marketing campaign to promote it - and vice versa. Grouping closely related projects together often brings in benefits you wouldn’t realize otherwise. In such cases, you group the projects together as a program. “.the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements.”īut what if you have multiple projects that are somehow related to each other? Say, a project to create a website and another to run a marketing campaign for it? “.a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service or result.” If you’re reading this, you likely already know the definition of project management. I’ll also share a number of program management resources to give you a deeper understanding of this vital skill. In this article, I’ll give you a detailed rundown of the definition, processes, roles and responsibilities in program management. When you have multiple projects connected to each other, you group them together and manage them as a whole “program”. In a nutshell, program management is the management of different but related projects. Program management is something similar, yet very different. If you’ve been reading this blog, you’re likely familiar with project management and everything it involves.
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