“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra.”— H.E. Luccock
Welcome to my roundup of blog posts from across Microsoft on the art and science of Program Management.
The Program Manager role is a very powerful one. I think of it as a technical entrepreneur that blends customer focus, with technical skills, and business acumen. It’s the blending of those three domains that makes it so powerful for bringing ideas to life.
Great PMs make things happen by setting a vision, bringing a team together, creating an execution engine, and shipping ideas that change the world.
What exactly is a Program Manager? At Microsoft it’s a role that means many things to many people. In general though, when you meet a PM at Microsoft, you expect somebody who has vision, can drive a project to completion, can manage scope and resources, coordinate work across a team, bridge the customer, the business, and the technology, act as a customer champ, and influence without authority. From a metaphor standpoint, they are often the hub to the spokes, they drive ideas to done, they take the ball and run with it, or find out who should run with the ball. Some PMs are better at thought leadership, some are better at people leadership, and the best are great at both.
One of my favorite quotes that helps distinguish program management vs. project management is by G. Reiss:
“Project management is like juggling three balls – time, cost and quality. Program management is like a troupe of circus performers standing in a circle, each juggling-three balls and swapping balls from time to time.”
Start Here
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective Program Managers (J.D. Meier)
- How I Learned to Program Manage an Agile Team after 6 years of Waterfall (Sara Ford)
- PM at Microsoft (Steven Sinofsky)
- What is a PM? (J.D. Meier)
- Zen of PM
What is a PM
- Exchange team defines a Program Manager (Sean Lyndersay)
- On Being a Program Manager (John Montgomery)
- PM at Microsoft (Steven Sinofsky)
- Program Management – Thinking about PM != PM and the PM role in Microsoft (Willy-Peter Schaub)
- Program Management – Thinking about PM != PM and Visual Studio ALM Rangers (Part 2) (Willy-Peter Schaub)
- Program Management – Are some of the ALM Rangers Symbiotic PM’s? (Willy-Peter Schaub)
- Reflections on Program Management at Microsoft (Sean Lyndersay)
- The disadvantages of being a Program Manager (Terry Zink)
- Thoughts on Product Management (Tom Hollander)
- Todor tells you about the different flavors of PM at Microsoft
- What Program Manager in Microsoft does and what I do as PM in Microsoft (Nikola Dudar)
- What does a Program Manager do? (Eric Gunnerson)
- What Does a Microsoft Program Manager Really Do? - Demystifying the PM Role (Farshid)
- What is a PM? (J.D. Meier)
- What is a Program Manager anyway? (Dave Massy)
Getting Started
- Becoming a Program Manager @ Microsoft (Sharad Goel)
- How to become a Program Manager (interview tips, resources, etc.) (Kintan)
- QUESTION - I am Program Manager Charged with Implementing SharePoint - Now What? (Gregory S. MacBeth)
- Starting out as a Program Manager (Chris Pratley)
Effectiveness
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective Program Managers (J.D. Meier)
- 10 Success Patterns for PMs (J.D. Meier)
- How Agile Works – My Program Manager Cheat Sheet (Sara Ford)
- How I Learned to Program Manage an Agile Team after 6 years of Waterfall (Sara Ford)
- My 3 part series on Agile Program Management on Port 25 (Sara Ford)
- Part 1 – the Agile Program Management Lifecycle w/ a real world example from a CodePlex feature set (Sara Ford) * No longer exists?
- Part 2 – Course Correction– why designing features only 80% of the way allows you to deliver the ideal 100% feature in an agile team (Sara Ford)
- Part 3 – How the Codeplex Team Builds Software using Agile (Sara Ford)
- Zen of PM
Interviewing
- Developer to Program Manager : The Interview (Harikrishna Menon)
- Program Manager (PM) Interview tips (Daniel Escapa)
- Program Management interviews at Microsoft (Kintan)
Tips for Program Managers
- 10 Steps for Structured Project Management (J.D. Meier)
- Building Consensus (Brad Abrams)
- Inspiring a Vision (J.D. Meier)
- Modern PM Research Techniques (Steven Sinofsky)
- Program Manager (PM) Tip Index (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip #10: Interview Tips for Landing a Great Program Management Job (Brad Abrams)
- PM tip# 11: Information is the Currency of Program Management (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip #12: Don't waste keystrokes (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip #14: Great teams have members that defy roles (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip #21: Sanity Will Prevail (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip # 32: Nothing kills excitement like ambiguity (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip #57: Write the agenda on the board (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip #72 Instant feedback... (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip #73: The "Be More Visible" Sham (Brad Abrams)
- PM Tip #78: Reveal your stupidity (Brad Abrams)
- Presentation tip: They Remember the Mistakes more than the Polish (Brad Abrams)
- Program Management Tip - Save Time by Working on What Actually Counts (J.D. Meier)
- That is a full day's work! (Brad Abrams)
- The What and the How (Brad Abrams)
- The Wisdom of Crowds: Rethinking consensus (Brad Abrams)
- Thoughts on writing reviews... (Brad Abrams)
- Write the Story for Your Project (J.D. Meier)
You Might Also Like
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective Program Managers
- Agile Downsizing: Why Agile Skills Improve a Project Manager’s Job Security
- Agile Results: It Works for Teams and Leaders Too
- Are You Used to Delivering Working Software on a Daily Basis and Changing the Software in Response to Emerging Requirements?
- Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) Framework