PMI’s Salary Survey Shows Increased Earnings for Credential Holders
Before advancing to chief information officer at a small private bank in Switzerland, Mr. Burlereaux already had 14 years of project management experience in the finance industry.
“I am convinced that one of the best ways to improve your skills is to have a strong foundation—a sound field of practice in project management with a continuous search for learning,” he says.
Having gained experience running the bank’s daily IT operations and implementing an IT department restructuring project, Mr. Burlereaux was able to hit the ground running when he was promoted to program manager. Soon after making the transition, he was managing complex multiyear programs that involved restructuring the core banking system platform and implementing a core banking system package.
Regardless of your experience, he says, “I would encourage people to invest time on learning program management concepts that could also be [applied] at the project level, [including soft skills].”
Mr. Burlereaux emphasizes the importance of developing leadership and communication capabilities to share your vision with the team and enable them to deliver benefits aligned with your strategic goals.
Mr. Burlereaux says one way he improved his program management skills was with the help of two mentors. They taught him all the required interactions between the program and the underlying projects, including top-down flow, bottom-up flow, project risks, change requests and changes in baseline issues.
In many companies, the program manager title is loosely defined. To obtain it, you may even have to create the position yourself.
“The company only provides the environment and opportunity,” says Mr. Low, who’s been working as a program manager in the telecom industry for two years. “Whether the candidate is willing to step forward is sometimes ultimately controlled by the employees.”
Mr. Low began coordinating multiple projects and meeting with management to let them know he was ready to handle program management. Once he obtained the required experience, he also earned the PgMP credential to build credibility within the company.
In preparation for the transition, you should increase your knowledge of program management concepts by participating in industry conferences and events or even related courses. It’s also important to know what to expect once you step into the role.
Initially, while managing programs that involved building the company’s infrastructure and operating support system, Mr. Low spent significant time getting to understand the business from various stakeholder perspectives by consistently seeking feedback from clients, superiors, peers and subordinates.
“Program managers spend almost all their time managing change and communicating with the program stakeholders,” he says.
Therefore, they need to create an environment that invites that level of communication. To do so, Mr. Low recommends setting up ground rules and identifying the team members’ roles and responsibilities with each new program.
Ms. Cobb discovered a whole host of responsibilities when she and her partner launched a consulting and software development company 12 years ago.
“I did not move up a huge corporate ladder,” she says. “When I went from project to program management, it was out of necessity.”
When you become a program manager in a smaller company or a consultancy, you could end up honing such business acumen as governance management, life cycle management and intellectual property protection because you are governing projects and programs for your own company as well as for your clients.
Program managers not only have to do their jobs but also often become mentors in helping customers realize the benefits of having a program manager on board.
“I would hold regular meetings with the project managers—both for my company and the companies for whom I consulted—to discuss issues, alternatives and plan actionable steps,” she says. “I also conducted brown bag luncheons to discuss trends in technology.”
When she was creating and managing the project management office (PMO) for a military customer, for example, the company hired a dozen project managers within a year.
“I successfully mentored and led the new project managers to achieve and implement a standard foundation of program and project best practices, guided by PMI, while educating them in an effort to influence their acceptance of their own program,” she says.
Ultimately, she found she spent more time managing relationships than she had initially planned, but keeping everyone on the same page is central to keeping multiple projects on track.
Mr. Jeri says the economic downturn could be an opportunity to highlight the successful aspects of your programs.
He should know. He became a program and operations manager during an earlier recession in 2002. That impacted the IT and telecom industries, requiring him to do a lot of multitasking, including contract administration, cost control, logistics, and operations and project management.
The struggles he faced then are still common today.
The programs he managed varied, ranging from managing rooftop construction services for a telecom company in Peru to acting as an in-plant program manager for a telecom carrier company in Venezuela.
“I found myself with limited resources and conflict in priorities of the program,” he says. “When the scope of a program changed, I had to keep plans of all the related projects in line.”
He addressed those challenges by using conflict management skills to help assess and prioritize risks.
“All the team managers worked for several weeks in a ‘war room’. It is there when you realize what really works for you and what doesn’t. If you are able to gain trust from others, the odds of success in the program are very high,” he says.
The program succeeded and more; it was recognized among company partners for its high record of site acceptance.
