9 Ways to Elevate Your Skills to Be an Effective Program Manager
Program management is a demanding role that requires a diverse set of skills to oversee multiple projects, ensuring their smooth and timely completion. The task becomes even more challenging in federal organizations. Not only do they have complex hierarchies and approval processes, but federal projects also often involve collaboration between multiple departments or agencies.
To effectively manage all the moving pieces, teams, and tasks, the program managers working at the federal level must display excellent strategic thinking, planning, organizational, and delegation skills. They must also have a strong appetite for learning to continue to improve and get better at their work.
Whether you aspire to be a program manager or working as one already, you must not rest on your laurels and continue to push yourself, hone your skills, and expand your knowledge.
How to Become an Effective Program Manager? Tips to Expand and Improve Your Skills
Program management in a federal agency is a rewarding job. But it is equally challenging as well. Here are some tips and suggestions to better deal with the challenges and do your job well:
1. Learn to Improvise
Program management involves overseeing multiple projects at the same time, each of which may have a distinctive approach, different goals, and a separate team. You may have a layout of how the programs are supposed to progress and the results they must deliver, but it’s all merely a mission and vision statement until it is achieved. Considering how big, diverse, and widespread programs typically are, there’s always the risk of things not going as planned. Programs are uncertain, and an efficient program manager can deal with their uncertainties, improving and improvising as the projects move ahead.
The planning intervals that program managers utilize to work out the next steps can also serve as an opportunity to review the progress made and ensure the teams are still on track.
2. Help Your Teams Grow
The government often takes unique initiatives to better meet public needs and improve the quality of life. There are also several innovative projects that federal agencies take up at the organizational level to create better solutions and new opportunities. While innovation is the key to success, one challenge these novel initiates often pose is the lack of skilled individuals to work on these projects.
You may hire new people to complete these tasks or outsource them, but it is not always the best solution, especially for skills you know are required in the long run. Your best option as a program manager in that scenario is to upskill and train the people you already have. This will fulfill your resource requirements permanently while also helping your team members to expand their skillset and grow.
Make sure to thoroughly assess the resources or skills required to determine which ones you may only need for a short time and which ones your agency will rely on and benefit from in the long run. For example, it’s not a wise decision to train someone to operate a forklift if you only need the machine for just one project or a small period. However, if you’re looking to build an online presence or expand it through digital marketing and social media, it pays to train people from your team because these are the skills you will be using and benefiting from for years.
3. Know How to Keep the Teams Motivated
Not all motivated teams may be successful, but all successful teams are motivated. But keeping teams motivated through extensive federal programs that continue for long times can be challenging. It’s not uncommon for project teams to gradually lose morale and motivation as time passes and problems begin to surface. Stress can make people lose focus and even put projects at risk of derailing. All of this eventually affects productivity and delay projects.
Whether you’re training to become a program manager or looking to improve in that role, keeping your teams motivated throughout the projects is one of the most important tasks you must learn. Here are some tips for doing that:
- Break down bigger projects into smaller, more easily achievable targets
- Set realistic goals and communicate them clearly to your teams with deadlines
- Stay in touch with your project managers and teams. Hold frequent meetings to stay aware of any challenges and obstacles they may face and to ensure they are on the right track and working at the right pace.
- Get feedback on the projects from those working on them. This will make them feel more involved and valued.
- Appreciate smaller achievements. Offer rewards whenever possible (no matter how small they may be). A free lunch, coffee, or even drinks after work would be a great way to make your project teams feel more appreciated and motivated to display the same (or better) performance.
- Maintain a clear line of two-way communication with all the stakeholders.
- Refrain from micromanaging. This can put off project teams and managers
Federal projects often go on for several years. So, it’s only natural for teams to get sidetracked and lose motivation and pace. It’s challenging to maintain morale and momentum over the years. But it’s your responsibility as a program manager to consistently deliver measurable outputs for all the ongoing projects. You may have to juggle the priorities, realign goals, redefine progress (or how you measure it), acknowledge (and share) smaller achievements, and help your teams and stakeholders put those small successes into perspective to realize that progress is being made and how it all contributes to the bigger goals.
4. Keep an Eye Out for Burnout
Federal programs can go on for what seems like an eternity. They are also quite likely to encounter delays and setbacks and require changing the approach. There may be times when your strategies fail to provide the desired results. All of this can lead to burnout.
As a program manager, it is your responsibility to protect your teams from it.
There are several ways to do it, but it all comes down to ensuring your team members are not being pushed too much for work. Set realistic goals and deadlines. Make sure everyone gets adequate downtime on day to day basis, as well as over the project duration (vacation days). Accept that your staff members can’t work at maximum speed or give the best quality all the time. To prevent significant dips in productivity, divide programs into multiple phases with highly-productive and quieter phases in terms of deliverables.
Watch sick leave requests/calls and overtime reports. If people call in sick or stay at work beyond the regular hours too often, reach out to them. Sick leaves can be an indicator of occupational burnout, and working overtime too frequently can cause it.
These are all some tactics to help prevent burnout among your team members. But you may still have people suffering from it. Therefore, it’s essential to keep an eye out for the signs and offer help to those in need. Program managers need to understand that nothing is more important than the health and well-being of their team members. The quality and quantity of work you put out depends on how strong and well-functioning your team is. It pays to care for them. Ensuring your team’s welfare is also one way of improving retention rates.
5. Improve Governance
Depending on whether you are already a program manager or working to become one and your educational background, you may or may not be aware of the concept of governance in the program management domain. For those who may not know, it refers to the framework, processes, and tools that guide a program, facilitate correct decision-making, and help the manager oversee and control it. Typically, governance for federal programs is done by a dedicated board or steering committee, but it’s the program manager’s responsibility to implement the structure and choose the right people for the job. Without effective governance, the program can get off-track. It helps keep the project progressing in the right direction and people accountable.
6. Learn to Delegate
One way of telling how good a program manager is at their work is by figuring out how good they are at delegating work and responsibilities. Federal programs are extensive, and managing them can be exhaustive. You can’t do it all alone. Therefore, you must have a team to share your burden after the program initiation. It will not just take some burden off your shoulders but will also ensure timely completion of tasks efficiently. Trying to do everything on your own can take a toll on the quality of work (after all, you can only do so much at one time) and can also delay things. Delegating work will also leave you with time to do more strategic tasks.
7. Hone Your Conflict Resolution Skills
Federal programs are multifaceted with lots of strands. There are multiple parties on board, complex procedures and policies to navigate through, and often unrealistic goals and unachievable deadlines to meet. As the program manager, you will also be dealing with both project teams and executive members of the agency and government. All of this creates unlimited avenues for conflicts, which can cause anything from minor setbacks to major derails.
Learn conflict resolution tactics to prevent them from arising or escalating, wherever possible. Watch out for the signs of conflict and intervene before they can disrupt a project. But don’t be afraid of conflicts if they arise. Instead, take them as opportunities to reassess and realign your strategies.
8. Improve Communication
If you’re to name one thing that can singlehandedly improve or disrupt a program manager’s work, it is communication. Whether it’s setting clear expectations for the projects, delegating program management tasks, listening to your project teams, giving feedback, or dealing with stakeholders, it all requires effective communication. Without it, a program can turn into a huge mess. So program managers need to have good communication skills. They must also lay out a detailed communication strategy, outlining everything from the channels, approach, and methodologies to who to contact for what tasks. Effective communication helps streamline projects and programs and avoid confusion, paving the way for their smooth running and timely completion.
9. Get Program Management Certification
Professional certification in program management can help you build, expand, and improve the skills required for the job. It will also work as proof of your skills and capabilities in the professional world, giving you an advantage over several other employees. If you’re a federal employee looking to move up the organizational ladder and work as a program manager, professional certification is the best thing you can do for yourself. If you already hold the position, program management certification can help you further polish your skills and better enable you to advance your federal agency’s strategic goals.
Even federal employees with natural leadership talents may not be inherently well-suited for program management. It requires a much higher level of organization, management, and communication skills that they may learn through program management courses.
The Final Word
Every professional success story is different. But one thing that’s common among all of them is the unending appetite for learning.
It’s no secret that continuous learning and improvement is the key to growth and success. It doesn’t just help you stand out in a team but is also essential for vertical growth. You can’t move up the ranks without increasing your knowledge and elevating your skill set. And even when you have achieved your dream position, you must continue to learn and improve to become better at your work.
Since the scope of work in federal organizations is large and complex, employees often get caught up with work, overlooking the need for skills development and personal growth. Whether you aspire to be a program manager or looking to improve your performance as an existing program manager, self-development is the way to go. Use these tips and suggestions to guide yourself through this path.
