Program Management for Improved Business Results

Chapter 12. Program Manager Roles and Responsibilities

This chapter turns the focus of attention to the program manager, where we comprehensively describe his or her primary roles and responsibilities. Numerous times in this book we have described programs as business vehicles to make money and achieve other strategic objectives and program managers as business leaders who are in charge of the vehicles.

The fact that we see program managers as business leaders portrays them as a special type of mover and shaker. And, they really are! Program managers make or break the business side of their programs, managing finances, monitoring the market, and battling business risks. In that way, their programs add to or take away from the value proposition to the company's portfolio of programs and improve or worsen the company's bottom line.

We present the subject matter through several steps. First, we show that the job of a business unit GM is to invest money to realize a set of business objectives and use program managers to accomplish that. We then describe the business responsibility of program managers in managing the investment. For simplicity, we split the responsibility into two groups: managing the business and leading the program team. This chapter seeks to help all members of an organization who are involved with a program understand the following:

• The role of the program manager is that of a business manager who performs the business function for his or her specific program

• How the ...