Program Management
Being a PM is fun initially; you get to tell the team what to do. However, as you progress more into the role, you realize that your role is servant leadership. You are there to serve the team, your people, help them find meaning in their work, and deliver something tangible enough to get clients, which will get money, ensuring that their jobs are secured.
If you think on a high level, it's economics. There is money somewhere, and you want it for you to lead the desired life. Now, no one is going to hand you their money unless you are a looter with a gun, so you go and try to create value for your intended customer.
As a customer, I am ready to give my money to you if I perceive value in what you are offering to me. So, as a business, you need to ensure that the value you are creating is perceived as valuable enough for you to get enough money to run or expand your business.
So, as a business, how do you do it?
For instance, in the case of the software business, you create a product and sell it. You will hire people to create products and build a team that will build software for you. These people are engineers, designers, and managers. These are the people who took a conscious or unconscious decision to not create value by themselves for a customer and instead create value for a business that will create value for the customer. Thus these people are called employees.
Consequently, to manage such a team of employees and ensure business continuity, you need managers. On top of that, you can’t possibly run teams without losing your focus from the vision of the business; thus, you need managers. In our case of software-creating businesses, you need a technical program manager or simply program managers.
Now that we know why we need program managers. Next, let's talk about what a program manager does in a typical digitally-driven business.
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Byte,
Accidental Techy
