Program Management – Key Roles

For significant programs, such as launching a company, a new product, a major system upgrade and/or post merger/acquisition integration, there are key roles involved to ensure success. Each has a set of specific responsibilities which must be clearly understood, from the get-go.

At a high-level, these roles include:

• The Executive Sponsor
• The Functional Leads
• The Program Management Office (PMO)

Let’s now breakdown each.

The Executive Sponsor

This role is played by the most senior, individual stakeholder of the program. For a new company launch, this very well may be the CEO, where-as for an established firm, launching a new product to a new region, this role may be played by the VP/GM of the region.

Regardless of who plays the role, an Executive Sponsor provides the following, to the program:

• Overall strategic direction and ensuring ongoing alignment to business objectives
• Serves as a voice for the project and ensures appropriate organizational priority is given throughout
• Air-support, ensuring team members are not distracted by lesser organizational priorities and/or impacted by obstacles unrelated to the program objectives
• Informally interacts with the project team and other key stakeholders to stay informed of trends and events within the program (and ensure program remains viable)
• Serves as an escalation point for issues and other matters and obstacles that are beyond the control of the program manager (PM)
• Participates in program meetings as requested by the PM
• Is available to the PM on a 24/7 basis, allowing no layers between sponsor and PM
• Ensures risks and changes are managed properly and makes associated decisions
• Makes go/no go decisions

Finally, the sponsor is responsible for recognizing, addressing (proactively or reactively), and initiating appropriate action if business conditions and circumstances change throughout the lifecycle of the program.

The Functional Leads

For a medical device technology company, the functional leadership of a significant program would be comprised of the VP’s of Customer Care, Clinical Affairs, Finance, HR, IT, Legal, Marketing, Sales, Supply Chain and of course Quality, Regulatory and Compliance.

Functional Leads provide the following to the program:

• Strategy and approach to how their organization will meet program objectives
• Identifies key deliverables in support of, and risks to, the program
• Defines detail-level activities and plans necessary to fulfill their program objectives
• Clearly articulates dependencies with others, outside their respective organization
• Provides a clear voice, sharing their respective organization’s strategy, detail-plans and progress towards meeting program objectives
• Drives activities necessary to fulfill their respective organization’s deliverables
• Leads working-group meetings necessary to deliver on their function’s objectives, publishes meeting notes to participants and stakeholders, as well as ensures follow-through on actions and decisions

Finally, Functional Leads work closely with the Program Management Office (PMO) to collate all of the above information into a cohesive cross-functional plan while capturing ALL program-related risks, actions, issues and decisions in the program’s RAID Log. Includes ensuring their respective status and progress is accurately reflected in program artifacts (i.e., functional area program dashboards, etc.).

The Program Management Office (PMO)

At the highest level, the PMO serves as cross-functional coordination, facilitation and escalation point for ALL program-related matters.

At a more detail-level, this includes:

• Clearly defining program requirements and priorities with the larger organization
• Identifying, engaging and mobilizing necessary (internal and external) resources
• Working closely with Functional Leads in both a 1:1 and group setting to obtain necessary information to build-out detail-level, cross-functional plans, identify risks and issues related to the program.
• Weaving together cross-functional plans into a single, cohesive plan, inclusive of complete mapping of dependencies (within and outside the firm).
• Clearly articulating what needs to be done and keeping the team focused on project tasks and goals
• Driving, tracking and managing project execution, identifying and mitigating risks to completion
• Conducting periodic (typically weekly or bi-weekly) program reviews, providing a top-level overview of program progress (including high and low-lights), health and highlighting key risks, actions, issues or decisions impeding progress.
• Coordinating, scheduling and facilitating cross-functional discussions and working-sessions, as needed, as well as capturing and publishing minutes ensuring stakeholders remain in the know
• Preparing for, and participating in, executive update meetings and related reporting
• Provides PM-related coaching and education to individuals working with the PMO.
• Other tasks and activities, as needed, to achieve successful program initiation through execution and completion.

While the above may vary a bit, the responsibilities covered by each role are absolutely crucial to program success.

If you’d like to learn more on how to ensure success of your programs and/or individual projects, feel free to check out the MANY articles we’ve published on the subject, by clicking here, or reach out to discuss how we can help!