The People, Process, & Progress Podcast - Be a Good Project Manager to be an Effective Program Manager | Foundations Friday #91

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

As a Program Manager, we need to be ready to jump into any Project level work on behalf of our people or our organization. In Be a Good Project Manager to be an Effective Program Manager | Foundations Friday #91, I share my journey from Status Check-In Recorder to Planning Section Chief and the parallels to becoming a Senior Project Manager and Program Manager in the Healthcare IT space.

It's time to lace up, chalk up, get logged in, and get locked on to the KevTalks podcast. Get ready to hear compelling interviews with extraordinary people, hear industry-leading best practices that will help you and your teams make progress together. Now let's get to this episode in 3, 2, 1. Welcome everyone to Foundations Friday, episode 91. You have to be a good project manager before you can be a good program manager. Welcome everyone to Foundations Friday episode 91. You have to be a good project manager before you can be a good program manager. Why do I say this? One, because I really think it's true.

But most importantly, you have to be able to jump back into project manager mode if your teammates need you. If the project managers that are within your program on your team get overwhelmed in one area or they need some guidance, maybe some reminders of PM 101 things or something happens in their life, right in their personal life, and it takes them away from from the job, you have to be able to jump in, facilitate meetings, well, take notes, well, get them resources, how they need to do it, just like you would as a project manager. And if you don't have those skills, then that's a problem. And that's, you know, where maybe folks that have been program managers for a long time, or they're disconnected

from that aspect, can maybe lose a little bit of that edge. I think I am very fortunate that even as a planning section chief, right, a nationally credentialed one and a teacher of that stuff, that I never lost what it was like to be a check in recorder. And for those of you don't know, that means I started as sitting at a table with a piece of paper and getting police and fire and EMS people to sign in at an event or an incident and sign back out. And then I was a resource unit leader where my job was to lead the people doing the sign in and sign out and set up accountability programs and a few other things that have to do with that. And then I worked up to planning section chief that includes that plus three other units and some tech specialists and whatever else.

And that has huge value. I see huge value in the same thing in the project and program management world where folks start as an associate project manager, cut their teeth, do some administrative things, get used to what the environment's like, become a project manager, where now it's yours, it's all on you. And then a program manager or senior project manager rather and then program manager where now you're leading other project managers or you're picked for the hard things or the last minute emergent things. And then you're a program manager leading a team of teams

or a program of programs like I talked about on a few episodes ago. And that ground level skill that you get from being a project manager is invaluable. And it makes you more of an asset to your organization and more importantly to your team because you can understand what they're going through. You can jump in and help them if they need it. And it just really helps you bring together

the bigger picture if you have those basic skills. So thank you so much for learning some basic skills here on the KevTalks podcast. Listen to this brief Foundations Friday. Please subscribe, share, especially on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Those are the big dogs in the podcast game. Please leave a review. Let me know. Do you like it? Do you not like it? What should we change? But more reviews. Hope the show grow, gets it on the lists and all that good stuff. But thanks so much. I hope y'all are doing well out there. Please make sure to have that plan to keep your teams aligned, stay informed with facts, not fear, and maybe, you know, verify those every now and then before you make decisions based on the facts.

And then get involved so you can make a difference, so you can help your team, so you can help your organization. And like me, if you're in healthcare IT, so you can ultimately help patients get better. Thank you for helping me get better. Stay safe out there, everybody. Wash those hands. Godspeed, y'all.