The document summarizes advice from seven experienced program managers on how project managers can prepare to take on broader, more strategic program manager roles. Some key points include: - Be proactive in resolving conflicts rather than reactive, think about governance and stakeholder alignment. - When gaining responsibilities as a program manager, you give up some direct control over project tasks but look for risks and issues across projects. - Think and act strategically, ensure executive sponsorship of the program, and help stakeholders visualize progress toward benefits. - Develop a program plan that connects all projects and activities to organizational objectives, and understand team personalities to select the right project managers.

1. 62 PM NETWORK MAY 2015 WWW.PMI.ORG MAY 2015 PM NETWORK 63
Making the leap from project manager to program
manager requires not just different skills but a differ-
ent mindset. We asked seven experienced program
managers, “What should project managers
know and do when taking on broader, more
strategic roles?”
Be proactive, not reactive.
“As a program manager, I have learned to become more proactive in resolving
conflict rather than reacting to crisis. I think in terms of escalation rather than
reporting. Reporting only conveys the status of an issue; there’s no obligation
from the receivers to take action. Escalation gets the leadership team involved
in solving the problem. From my experience, escalation can be considered com-
plaining, so in the kickoff meeting for any project, I try to define when issues
will be escalated and to whom.
In moving toward a more proactive role, I tend to think less about teams and
more about broader issues of governance. When I talk about governance, I’m
thinking of ways to help all of the stakeholders, functional teams and delivery
teams align with the strategic objectives of the programs. Governance brings
ownership and accountability. In turn, the respective teams start considering
what needs to be done to reach their best performance.”
—Sethunarayanan Thiru, PMP, is the lead program manager for the field products line of
business at Honeywell Technology Solutions Lab in Bengaluru, India.
Attitude
AdjustmentBY AMY MERRICK

2. MAY 2015 PM NETWORK 6564 PM NETWORK MAY 2015 WWW.PMI.ORG
When you gain responsibilities,
you give up some control.
“To have greater influence over the program, you give up direct control over
each project task. The program manager is not a firefighter, but instead looks
for changes or delays in activities, identifies possible risks and prepares the team
for things that could go wrong.
Don’t wait for stakeholders to read their report and react. As you get to know
their habits, you will learn that some need a phone call or targeted email to draw
their attention. If a stakeholder flags an issue, then, as the program manager,
you need to determine a corrective course of action. When the stakeholders are
engaged, they can support with resources and monitoring. That will encourage
team members to address the issues.
Look for problems and facilitate prompt resolution, and be available for your
teams when they need you.”
—Philip Doty, PMI-RMP, PMP, PgMP, is program manager, citizen & defense services, for
Serco North America in Reston, Virginia, USA.
Bring high-level executives on board,
and think like one.
“While effective project management is an essential foundation for any change
initiative, it is rarely enough on its own. What is almost always required is
an extra layer—program management—to bring together a project and its
supporting change activities, focused on delivering the organization’s strate-
gic priorities. The three big pillars of successful change programs are senior
management sponsorship, stakeholder engagement and communication, and
benefits management.
Recently, I was asked to lead a business transformation initiative to boost
sales and change a company’s culture. As a first step, we made sure that we got
the senior management team aligned around the strategic objectives. As a sec-
ond step, instead of thinking only of one single project with deliverables on time
and budget, we conducted a workshop to draw the map for the change journey
ahead. The map provided an excellent framework, and using it throughout the
program for progress reporting proved invaluable to helping the stakeholders
visualize how far we had come with benefits realization.”
—Christian de Loës, PMP, is managing director and interim change program manager for
Prosensit Management Consulting AB in Stockholm, Sweden.
You need a strategic perspective, but your project
managers do, too.
“As a young project manager, I was lucky to work for an organization that clearly
expressed its strategy and encouraged managers to show their employees how
their daily tasks helped the company reach its goals. This approach has been an
integral part of my program management practice. Working in the IT world, I
have to lead highly technical teams, which I’ve found have a hard time thinking
in terms of business value instead of product features.
With a new team, I like to ask: ‘What do you think the user or client would
not be able to do without this project or product?’ Not-so-good answers are
related to product features—for example, in IT projects for oil companies, an
answer like, ‘With this project, the company will increase its data backup capac-
ity.’ I try to coach the team toward answers that are more like the following:
‘This project helps the company achieve its target production for barrels of oil
this year.’ These questions help teams express the program or project value for
the organization.
Focusing on the business value for the client has helped my teams select the
best solution for each project, facilitate decision-making on product construc-
tion methods and prioritize projects within the program.”
—Jose Rafael Alcala Gomez, PMP, is a project manager for Avalon Tecnologias de la
Informacion in Madrid, Spain. He has managed programs for an oil and gas company in
Latin America and a national government in Europe.
Understand the bigger picture—and the people in it.
“Developing a program plan is a means of ensuring that you successfully
achieve the organization’s objectives. Learn to visualize how the projects and
operational activities fit within your plan. This will connect the dots within
your program, as well as externally with other programs and projects, to ensure
stakeholders’ engagement and a successful program.
It’s also especially important as a program manager that you really know
your project teams’ personalities. Some of my team members were introverts
and valued control, while others were extroverts and valued social interactions
and showing excellent communication skills. Understanding their personalities
gives me, as a program manager, a better sense of whom to select for which
projects. In program management, different projects require different types of
project managers. You need to know who is best to lead a fast-paced project,
who can handle a project with a lot of ambiguities and who is best for a project
that is politically sensitive.”
—Jihan Al-Sherif, PMP, is a principal consultant at Software AG in Doha, Qatar.
The Talent Triangle
Considering making the leap from project to program management? Keep the “talent tri-
angle” in mind.
While technical skills are at the core of project and program management, they’re not
enough in today’s increasingly complex and competitive global marketplace. Companies are
seeking added skills in leadership and business intelligence—competencies that can support
longer-range strategic objectives that contribute to the bottom line.
The ideal skill set—what PMI calls the “talent triangle”—is a combination of technical,
leadership, and strategic and business management expertise.
Practitioners looking to move into program management should focus on filling skill
gaps to meet the profession’s evolving demands—and seizing opportunities to become
a strategic partner in business success.
“The program manager is not a
firefighter, but instead looks for
changes or delays in activities,
identifies possible risks and
prepares the team for things
that could go wrong.”
—Philip Doty, PMI-RMP, PMP, PgMP, Serco North America,
Reston, Virginia, USA
“Developing a
program plan
is a means of
ensuring that you
successfully achieve
the organization’s
objectives. Learn
to visualize how
the projects
and operational
activities fit within
your plan.”
—Jihan Al-Sherif, PMP, Software AG,
Doha, Qatar
© 2015 Project Management Institute. All rights reserved

3. 66 PM NETWORK MAY 2015 WWW.PMI.ORG MAY 2015 PM NETWORK 67
STUCK IN A SILO
“Recently I was brought on board to assist on
planning and controlling an enterprise-wide IT up-
grade project. The project had been around for 18
months with no real value to show. It had several
important and undocumented dependencies with
other projects, and even though it was included
on the client’s list of strategic projects, it lacked
formal sponsorship. This project was headed for
failure.
It was clear there was no way this project could
be executed without careful integration with
two other corporate initiatives. So we worked
on documenting how these three projects were
interconnected and the value that they, as a
whole, would add to the organization. We identi-
fied communications needs, set up information
channels and established common reporting for
the three projects. In other words, we established
a corporate program delivering a shared view of
the situation to upper management and
facilitating the tracking of issues
and problems.”
—Jose Rafael Alcala Gomez, PMP
Consider how teams, not just team
members, interact.
“As a program manager, I learned to lead cross-functional teams instead of man-
aging a particular team. The difference is that I now have to balance the conflict-
ing objectives of different functional teams to align with the overall program
objective. A program manager needs to perfect the art of the trade-offs required
by a few of the teams. Otherwise, when everyone focuses on their own self-
interest, it can be difficult to take the organizational strategy to the next level.
I always project myself as a volunteer, rather than a program manager or
leader. With minimal oversight, I encourage project managers to prepare
a required subplan for each knowledge area, which I review in detail and
let them know how they can improve. Upon completion of a project, I also
encourage them to volunteer to review another project. This encouragement
gives them confidence that they really know the subject and helps them rein-
force their expertise.”
—Duraideivamani Sankararajan, PMP, is program manager at IBM India, a PMI Global
Executive Council member, in Bengaluru, India.
Sharpen your translation skills.
“As a program manager, I’ve taken responsibility for projects that span different
regions, and I’ve learned that cultural biases can impact the perception of a proj-
ect’s status. We often use the RAG (red-amber-green) method, but when you
are part of a global initiative, it can become difficult to present a consistent view.
One program I was involved in deployed a transcontinental strategic business
change. I found that in certain countries, people refuse to present a ‘red’ status
even if a project is in terrible condition because senior managers forbid it. In
other regions, team members sometimes say that a project is proceeding poorly
because they want management’s attention.
When I was head of release management for a Swiss bank, as part of the
software delivery team, the ‘watermelon’ status—green on the surface, but red
in reality—was the most dangerous, as one missed deliverable could endanger
a whole release weekend. I have learned to coach all project managers to pro-
vide evidence that their reported status is in line with reality and is done in a
consistent manner.”
—Marc Burlereaux, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMP, PgMP, is a member of the change delivery
team at HSBC Private Bank in Geneva, Switzerland.
UNREALISTIC TIMELINE
“On one program, I worked for an outsourcing
company to implement a banking software
package. It was difficult to gain a shared view
about the program status and which features
to implement because of different understand-
ings between the bank client, the banking
software provider, and my company leading
the program and the project teams in charge
of the implementation. In spite of trying to
reconcile the program status among all these
groups, we were forced to accept a challenging
delivery timeline.
We had to delay the go-live date more than
four times, which meant a costly project review
each time. During the assessment status and
rescheduling, we stopped all the work and the
team sat idle. When you ask a program team
four times to walk the extra mile to achieve a
deadline, you have to make sure the last time is
a good one. The final rollout went very well, but
a more sustainable pace and approach would
have been better and less costly to implement.”
—Marc Burlereaux, PMI-ACP, PMI-RMP, PMP, PgMP
LACK OF STAKEHOLDER COMMITMENT
“In a business process management project at an
organization where I consulted, the stakeholders were
not on board. The project’s complexity, deliverables
and magnitude had not been properly communicated.
I immediately had to change course. I held an
educational session for the senior management and
their advisers to ensure that they saw the value of
the project. On the other hand, the middle manage-
ment team worried that my project would reduce
the scope of their projects. As a result, I organized
follow-up sessions for them to understand their pain
points and help them feel less threatened by the
project.
I talked about what business process manage-
ment really means, and I demonstrated how it helps
strategy execution and contributes to a successful
project. I showed the link between the business
process management project and other current
projects, as well as upcoming strategic projects. I
was able to gain support and increase the chances of
the project’s success.”
—Jihan Al-Sherif, PMP
DISCONNECT BETWEEN PROMISES
AND REALITY
“Conflict between what the sales team
promises and what the project team is able to
achieve is one of the most common com-
plaints I hear, project after project. I have to
explain the scope of the project, as defined
in the contract or statement of work. I try
to understand the differences between the
contracted scope and the assurances of the
sales team, and I review internally what it
would take to meet the client’s expectations,
if feasible. A collaborative approach helps the
client understand that the scope of the project
is something they have reviewed and agreed
to in the contract.
As a program manager, I spend time with
each of the key members on the program or
project side and on the customer side as well.
If there is any disconnect, I try to explain how
it has to be modified, if required, to align to
the program objective. This kind of discussion
brings everyone on the same page.”
—Duraideivamani Sankararajan, PMP
Alignment Alert
Program managers need to keep projects in line with their organizations’ strategic goals. These warning
signs indicate that a project might be headed off track.
“A
collaborative
approach helps
the client
understand
that the scope
of the project
is something
they have
reviewed and
agreed to in the
contract.”
—Duraideivamani
Sankararajan, PMP
“A program manager needs
to perfect the art of the
trade-offs required by a few
of the teams.”
—Duraideivamani Sankararajan, PMP, IBM India,
Bengaluru, India