Conclusion
In his closing thoughts, James suggests that:
"Presence, relationship building, consistency, effective questioning, decision making, and mentoring are the program management leadership traits described in Chapter 2. The program manager also needs doggedness. Since programs are continual in nature, the program manager must persevere in good times and bad, all the while remaining focused on program objectives, improving the program's ability to execute, and increasing the capability of program personnel.
At the program level, many of the problems you are trying to fix are entrenched in culture, process, and tradition. These problems are not easily or instantaneously fixed; rather, you must continually hammer them over a period of time before a breakthrough can be achieved."[48]
But in our earlier section "What we liked", we noted that:
"Program managers should also check up on how well [their] project managers are doing stakeholder management by periodically (weekly or monthly or at milestones) calling each stakeholder and asking them how the project manager is doing and whether their [stakeholder's] needs are being met."[49]
With the foregoing responsibilities and obstacles, and this nearly full time job of checking up on how well project managers are doing in stakeholder management, one wonders why anyone would want to be such an overloaded program manager in the first place!
Except, perhaps, for the extra pay involved.
R. Max Wideman
Fellow, PMI
48. Ibid, p238
49. Ibid, p73
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Downside
