Some of my loyal readers wanted me to keep blogging! Yup, there is at least one person who likes what I blabber about J. What else could be better to write than about your own experiences with life (rather my current job in this case).

I won’t necessarily call it a smooth road in the past 18 months as a Program Manager though I enjoyed it a lot. If you have read my article “Program Management at MS”, you will find that I’ll talk in a different tone here. It was not a surprise transformation. I knew what to expect out of this role before I took it up. This is purely because I moved in the same group, but this is not necessarily true in every other group in this amazing company. You could be talking to a customer (or) managing an external customer account (or) scheduling and responsible for a portfolio (or) define standards for engineering excellence (or) build world class UX (or) localize content (or) write API set for partner groups (or) JUST coordinate and collaborate and yet be titled “Program Manager”. The responsibilities could vary by 100 % depending on the group, so next time any of you meet PM’s from Microsoft, don’t generalize on what they could be doing. A PM need not necessarily be the gel between the Product (Marketing) team and Dev/Test teams, he could just be anything (like a joker in a pack of cards).

Another angle is how DEV/TEST (usually) internally look at the program managers. I just find two states, either you are a champion Program Manager (who kicks ass), or you are pretty much a mere existence getting in the way of productive (read DEV/TEST) work force. There are numerous articles on the internet that talk about Project Management and few on Program Management being an art, science, philosophy, methodology, blah, blah, blah!!! However, my take is that very few in this industry understand what it means. Honestly, A lot of us are still figuring out J. I attended this very interesting session by the famous “Steven Sinofsky” where he quoted (I am sure he was joking) that “I don’t know why Program Managers are called so, they don’t “Program” and they don’t “Manage” ”. Phew! Isn’t it an irony that a company of this scale repeatedly gets into the same argument internally and externally about a discipline that holds multimillion dollar projects together?. It is time to move from “Good” to “Great” company by creating an atmosphere where every discipline has a great respect for the others not by forcing down the throat but by gaining confidence.

I’ll carry forward some more comments made by Steven today about “Impact & Influence”. Developers and Testers are great technically sound engineers but it takes someone to validate that what impact a superb feature is going to have on the end users. Don’t have doubts who that someone could be. There is work involved to change the perception of “unproductive”, “highly overpaid” Program Managers who seem to carry latest gizmos and attend a lot of meetings to a sensible notion of the person who “gets things done”, “holds the fort”, “herds the cats” etc…J. I had my own share of assaults that I was overstepping onto DEV territory, but there is always a confusion of how much design should a PM own vs. what DEV owns? I would say it is healthy because it gets the best out of both the disciplines. Microsoft purposefully hires smart & Aggressive people, whatever the world says, you should look at this as an opportunity apart from “survival for the fittest”. It is hard to push a unpopular decision (esp. when it is not backed-up with facts), but the trick is running the thought process with the DEV/TEST by asking the right questions and making the engineers feel accountable for it. I urge all the readers (esp. those in Program Manager roles) to involve their DEV/TEST teams early in the SDLC and create a sense of accountability and ownership on the features with the individual engineers. The PM’s own the customer interaction, but this shouldn’t stop them from involving the actual execution team from making critical decisions. There is no secret formula to turn the perception of a PM from a “bottleneck” to “catalyst”.

“Listen and Empathize” with the engineering team. Believe me, you’ll accomplish a lot!

Having rumbled a lot of PM-ing, I just have to mention that I am moving into a new PM role in Microsoft Global Services group. I survived 18 months as an IT PM and looking forward for a roller coaster ride in the services world. I would like to hear from you about what you think about this blog. Leave a comment!!!

Disclaimer: These are rush of thoughts and not to be attributed to the general Program Management @ Microsoft. I hope this article won’t be career limiting as this is just my perception and does not reflect Microsoft or its views on Program Management in any aspect. J