Program management focuses on strategic objectives across multiple deliverables over a loose time scale, compared to project management. The Levin-Ward model outlines key competencies for program managers, including communicating, leading, building relationships, negotiating, thinking critically, facilitating, mentoring, and embracing change. Critical skills are initiative, managing interfaces between teams, and leading without authority through influence and credibility. Effective program management is about collaboration across teams through interface management to maximize benefits.

1. Program Management
Skills
Tathagat Varma
Sr Director, Strategic Programs and Biz Ops
Yahoo! India R&D

2. Project vs. Program Management
Area Project Management Program Management
Focus Non-strategic Strategic
Objectives Singular Multiple
Extent of Change Narrow Broad
Benefits Realization Once Incremental
Deliverable Complexity Low High
Deliverable Quantity Few Many
Overall Time Scale Rigid Loose
Scope Change Exceptional Desirable
Functional Diversity Minimal Multidisciplinary
From “Program Management Complexity”

3. Competencies
Levin-Ward
Program
Management
Competency Model

4. Personal Competencies
Building
Communicating Leading Negotiating
Relationships
Thinking Embracing
Facilitating Mentoring
Critically Change

5. Communicating
• Actively listens, understands, and responds to
stakeholders
• Uses the key channels of communication
• Ensures the quality of the information that is
communicated
• Tailors the information to the audience
• Effectively uses each of the different communications
dimensions

6. Leading
• Implements the program’s vision
• Establishes the program’s direction
• Recognizes the interdependencies within the
program
• Takes calculated risks; is venturesome
• Assumes ownership of the program

7. Building Relationships
• Builds trust among stakeholders, clients, and team members
• Leverages the organization’ political dynamics to promote
program goals
• Advocates for diversity and treats others with courtesy and
respect
• Establishes and demonstrated high standards for personal
and team member performance
• Promotes and demonstrated ethics, integrity, and adherence
to corporate values in all interactions

8. Negotiating
• Obtains needed program resources
• Ensures program alignment with the
organization’s strategies
• Works proactively with the Program
Governance Board
• Promotes overall stakeholder support

9. Thinking Critically
• Conducts ongoing analyses to identify trends,
variances, and issues
• Applies fact-based decision making to current and
prospective issues
• Works proactively with the Program Governance
Structure that provides for decision making at the
appropriate levels
• Constructively challenges common beliefs and
assumptions – always looking for a better way

10. Facilitating
• Plans for success from the start of the
program
• Ensures that all team members work together
to achieve program goals
• Effectively resolves issues to solve problems
• Effectively handles personal and team
adversity

11. Mentoring
• Supports mentoring for program team
members
• Establishes a formal mentoring program
• Supports individual and team development
activities
• Recognizes and rewards individual and team
accomplishments

12. Embracing Change
• Establishes an environment receptive to
change
• Influence factors that may result in change
• Plans for change and its potential impact
• Manages changes when they do occur

13. Critical Competencies
• Initiative
• Managing at Interfaces
• Leading without Authority

14. Scale of Initiative
Level 5: Act independently and
report routinely
Level 4: Act independently but
report Immediately
Level 3: Recommend
Level 2: Ask
Level 1: Wait

15. Managing at Interfaces
• “agency theory”
• Collective outcomes more important than individual
outputs
• Optimize “whole” and not just the “parts”
• Even more critical with self-organizing agile teams
• Move away
– from “back-seat driving” to trusted coalition
– from pushing dependencies to facilitating
interdependencies

16. Leading Without Authority
• Leading with
influence
• Key is to establish
credibility
• Move away from
“command and
control” to
collaboration

17. Conclusions
• Program management is all about leading
without authority to create collaboration
among component teams by managing at
interfaces to maximize program benefits
realization
• Skills are far more important than any
process

18. Further Reading
• Manage It! – Johanna Rothman
• Program Management Complexity: A Competency Model – Ginger Levin and J. LeRoy
Ward
• The Agile PMO – Adrian Quinney
• An Agile PMO – Mike Griffiths
• PM at Microsoft – Steven Sinofsky
• Agile Program Management Best Practices – Pete Behrens
• Agile Program Management: Another Approach to Large Project – Johanna Rothman
• Project Management vs. Program Management – Tathagat Varma
• What are the Program Management Competencies – Tathagat Varma

19. Connect
Twitter: @tathagatvarma
Blog: http://managewell.net
Email: tathagat.varma@gmail.com
Presentation: http://slideshare.net/managewell