Theory of Program Management

People Power Programs

It's pretty simple: people can't perform at their best if they're burnt out or overstretched, unclear on their role and responsibility on the program, or insecure in their position. Programs are highly matrixed, so you're almost always working with people you've never worked with before, performance isn't measured the traditional way, and many people are contributing on top of their day job. It can be genuinely stressful to report out in program meetings to people you barely know: why haven't you hit the target, what are you going to do about it, I've been waiting three days for that report.

Well-being is about workload, but it's also about respect, and about acknowledging that we're all running on empty — especially with a family on top of the job. My experience is that if you give people grace, praise what they're doing well, and treat them with kindness, you get better performance. And you don't set impossible targets.

Frontline Feedback Forms Topline Strategies

Frontline workers — the ones on the phones, interfacing with customers, or out installing systems in the field — are the most important resource on your program. Often we at the management level see a problem in the metrics or the numbers and make a lot of assumptions about why the team isn't performing. We come up with ideas to fix it and start implementing top-down solutions that don't work on the ground. Until you talk to the people actually driving the numbers — not their boss, or their boss's boss, or some other line lead from another team — you won't actually know what's going on, what the true problem is, or how to fix it.

So frontline feedback informs the direction of the program and the ultimate solution. The people doing the work contribute directly to operations and process decisions, and to product development — not as a survey after the fact, but as part of how the program is run. Sometimes those employees already have a solution, or a great idea for using a tool the organization already owns; their feedback just never reaches the people steering the program. Spending even a day or two with them is one of the most important things I do.

Listen Before Leaping

Before committing to a solution, actively listen to the program delivery team, the stakeholders and the sponsors. What the delivery team is running into, what stakeholders need, and what sponsors are accountable for are three different conversations, and the right solution only becomes clear once you have had all three. One of my foundational books is Crucial Conversations: high-stakes conversations, handled well, are where programs are won.

Empower through positive reinforcement

Praise good work, often. Loosen the reins. Empower line leaders to fully own their line: to create and implement operational strategies based on their own experience, and to experiment to find the strategy that works. Ownership is what turns a workstream lead into a leader.

Research-based, not ego-based

My program management methods are rooted in peer-reviewed organizational development and project management literature, and I keep learning so new best practices make it into how I work. What I recommend is what the evidence and the team support, not what makes a consultant look clever.

Everything has a cost

If you're rushing to move to a new system to save money, have you counted the often invisible expense — team hours, time, frustrated customers and lost business from a poorly scoped and implemented project? I count those costs before we begin, and I'll tell you if the cheaper-looking path is the expensive one.