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Program Management

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My name is Shy Cohen and I’m a PM.

Program Management is similar to project management, but has more to do with the planning and execution of the project than with people management. In Microsoft, a Program Manager (most commonly known by the acronym PM) “owns” one or more features in a product and drives them from conception to ship. The feature team consists of relatively small development, testing, and user education groups that work together to define, design, implement, test and document the feature. However, the different disciplines working on the feature report in per-discipline management hierarchies that meet at upper-management level. The PM is responsible for the feature but has no direct reports (except for PM Leads, who have direct reports who are also PMs).

This makes the PM’s life very interesting, since one cannot just “put the managerial weight” on an issue when he or she believes that something should happen in a certain way. In essence, Program Management is the art and skill of making the right things happen with no leverage.

In my posts on this topic I would try to capture some of the things that I’ve learned about PM-ing. Let me know if there’s anything that you’d like me to cover in particular and I would do my best to comply.

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2004
    I want to know how you guys efficiently split a project into X number of parts for separate people to work on concurrently.

    -h

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2004
    Welcome!
    Looking forward for your posts.
    BTW, Joel Spolsky (www.joelonsoftware.com) has some great articles about writing functional specifications. In one of the articles he talks about PM in Microsoft: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000034.html .

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2004
    Thanks!
    Joel description of the history of Program Management is very interesting indeed, but the scope of the work of the PM does not end with writing specs as the text might suggest (though Joel alludes to that). In these entries I will try to expand on many aspects of the job (including spec-ing).
    -Shy.

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2004
    Hi,

    This metrix kind of work realy interesting (from development architecture point of view). could you elaborate on other postions (GPM, Director) and thier responsibilities.

    Thanks,

    Natty.

  • Anonymous
    October 29, 2004
    That sounds really interesting. I'll be reading what you have to say.

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