Operations Due Diligence: An M&A Guide for Investors and Business

PROGRAM OR PROJECT MANAGEMENT

The use of the terms program manager and project manager is often industry dependent. Within Operations Due Diligence, they are interchangeable, and any tendency toward one or the other is purely coincidental.

Program or project managers (PM) provide the bridge between the finance group and the other functional groups. PMs differ from functional managers in that they perform an operations role (similar to that of general manager), focusing solely on the projects they are assigned. PMs are matrix managers, responsible for marshaling all the resources necessary to complete projects. Functional managers, typically department managers, by contrast focus on a particular skill or discipline (software engineering, manufacturing, ...