Donna FitzgeraldSaw the BBC series called Neverwhere on Netflicks this weekend. One of the lead characters in the show was named Door and her father was named Portico. Since I have a brain that tends to make very strange connections, the show left me with an aha moment about the difference between project and program managers. For most companies, the best they can expect is that a project manager will get the project to the point where the “door” is visible and hopefully open and that’s as far as they’ll take their responsibility. A program manager on the other hand is responsible for convincing people they should actually walk through the “door” and partake of life on the other side.
I’m not sure if this analogy will work for anyone else but it seemed to ring true for me.
Thoughts? Reactions?
Category: Program Management Tags: Program Management
1 response so far ↓
1 Carol Rozwell August 11, 2009 at 2:22 pm
As someone who has been both a project and program manager, the description made sense to me. One of the challenges I faced as a program manager was to help others see the value in reuse. Perhaps the shift to more social technologies in the enterprise will help change the NIH mindset.
BTW, the punster in me has to ask, “what kind of food did they eat in the show, was it lintel soup?”