There is an exciting new product opportunity but there is nobody available in the business to run it

Everyone is busy.  When new opportunities arise business unit leaders are often faced with the grim reality that they have precious few staff members in their organizations that can peel away from their current responsibilities for a period of time and accept the challenge of driving a new product development initiative.

Capital equipment organizations often have personnel in their group that have the title ‘Project Manager.’  Sometimes, typically at larger organizations, there will be personnel with the title ‘Program Manager.’

What’s the difference?  

Project Managers typically handle initiatives with a limited scope that is confined to one or two departments.  They might also manage engineer-to-order projects that can be of significant scope and involve several departments but are of a tightly confined nature (the customer order) in terms of breadth and duration.  The business risk of project failure is low due to either the small scope or the fact that a customer has already placed an order.  

Program Managers handle large scope development efforts from the initial investigation stage all the way through technology risk retirement, prototype development, field customer testing, the manufacturing ramp and long-term sustaining and service support once the product is released.  The program team members come from a variety of departments and disciplines, requiring a manage-by-influence skill set. The risk of failure to the business is high as the investment is largely or entirely speculative. Developing a new capital equipment product line often takes years and millions of dollars in SG&A expense.

Program Managers operate at the hub, directing activities across multiple departments to ensure product development success.  At the earliest stages the number of active spokes might be small, typically engineering, marketing and supply chain personnel.  As technical risk is retired and commercial viability confidence increases personnel from other departments are pulled in to ensure everything is in place for a successful product launch.

Program Managers are also often tasked with maintenance of the business process governing product development.  Often, because much of the early focus is on technology, they are members of the engineering team with little direct experience in other departments like manufacturing operations, supply chain, field service, and applications engineering.

Even large, mature capital equipment organizations typically have just one or two Program Managers in any one business unit.  These employees are often senior individual contributors or small team managers and have self-taught the program management skill set over long periods of time. They are also often busy with the last opportunity and are unavailable to tackle the next one.

A good Program Manager can be instrumental to business success, balancing risk while advancing the program through its stages.  It is difficult to understate the importance of developing and nurturing the program manager skill set.  It is simply mission critical on one hand and seemingly impossible on the other given the long product lifecycle of capital equipment. A Program Manager that has experience driving multiple programs from inception to market launch is likely mid to late career and always in high demand.

I have had the opportunity to work in very large capital equipment companies that have the scale and profit profile to be able to afford focus on developing and maintaining this skill set.  It likely comes as no surprise to learn I have observed a very high correlation between market cap and program management acumen. 

If you don’t have the scale and profitability profile to develop and nurture the program management skill set CapSure solutions is here to help.  We specialize in coaching both Program Managers as well as program representatives from other departments to ensure product development success. We embed ourselves within the cross functional team at any stage in the development cycle and, through individual and group coaching as well as business process refinement, improve likelihood of program success.  In parallel we focus on institutionalizing the individual skill sets and business process for product development to ensure future initiatives will meet the organizations objectives.