Program Manager Job Description, Skills, and Salary
Get to know about the duties, responsibilities, qualifications, and skills requirements of a program manager. Feel free to use our job description template to produce your own. We also provide you with information about the salary you can earn as a program manager.
Who is a Program Manager?
An organization must provide clear advice on project objectives, performance and quality, budget, time to completion, and relative priority in order for projects to be completed efficiently, and all of these duties are handled by a project manager. A project manager is responsible for ensuring the successful completion of a project from start to finish. They act as bandleaders, bringing together their musicians, each of whom is a specialist with their own score, and as such, they must be granted the appropriate level of authority to ensure that a project is successfully completed.
As a project manager, you should always keep your skill sets up to date and be able to comprehend what your clients require. It’s important to remember that as a project manager, you’re responsible for not only expressing your opinions on the project but also ensuring that the entire team is motivated and on board with the development process.
Organizations are continually confronted with new challenges and possibilities. The world and the markets are in a state of flux, and there are many unknowns. Without project management, firms are more likely to produce unsuccessful projects and a lot of untidy, unstructured processes, which isn’t ideal.
Project management is the process of putting in place the necessary procedures and policies to ensure that a project is executed successfully and efficiently. Project management is also a notion that ensures that a project is guided by one or more individuals from conception through completion and delivery to the client.
When it comes to project management, if the path isn’t adequately defined, it’ll be difficult to finish the project on time. There are numerous constraints that must be considered when establishing a project, including time, delivery quality, and a variety of other factors. Project management is an excellent answer to such problems.
Occasionally, during the development of a project in a company, a limited budget is allotted to such a project. The role of project management in budget management is crucial. Organizations would be able to better regulate such sensitive and crucial issues by implementing the notion of project management as project management is critical when large businesses are involved in several, complicated, and ongoing initiatives.
Job Description of a Program Manager
Below are the program manager job description examples you can use to develop your resume or write a program manager job description for your employee. Employers can also use it to sieve out job seekers when choosing candidates for interviews.
Taking on the role of project manager can be multifaceted and hard, but it can also be quite rewarding in the end. A project manager is fully responsible for the following responsibilities:
- Determine the project’s scope and objectives.
- Estimate the resources needed to meet goals and manage them effectively and efficiently.
- Prepare a budget based on the project’s scope and resource requirements.
- Create and manage a defined project timeline and work plan.
- Assign responsibilities to vendors and suppliers and communicate expected outputs.
- Apply industry best practices processes and standards throughout the project’s execution.
- Coordinate internal resources, third parties, and vendors to ensure that projects are completed flawlessly.
- Ensure that all projects are finished on time, on budget, and within scope.
- Define the scope and objectives of a project, as well as bring in all relevant participants and ensure technical feasibility.
- Measure project success with the right systems, tools, and methodologies.
- Make extensive project documentation and maintain track of it.
- Create a project plan to track and monitor progress
- Manage changes to the project scope, schedule, and costs using appropriate verification methodologies.
- Meet with clients to obtain thorough ordering briefs and to define each project’s requirements.
- Delegate project duties depending on the specific strengths, skill sets, and experience levels of junior staff members.
- Monitor project progress, focusing on assessing if short- and long-term goals were reached.
- Make use of and continue to improve your leadership abilities.
- Maintain proficiency by attending conferences and training as needed.
Qualifications
The following are the qualifications needed to be qualified for the post of Project Manager:
- A bachelor’s degree in computer science, business administration, or a related discipline is required.
- 5-8 years experience in project management and related fields.
- Project Management Professional (PMP) certification is preferred.
- Excellent knowledge of project management software, methods, and best practices
- Excellent analytical skills and experience seeing projects through the whole life cycle
- Proven ability to solve difficulties creatively
- Exceptional interpersonal skills
- Demonstrated ability to complete projects within the stated scope, budget, and timeline
Essential Skills
As a program manager, your key skills encompass both hard and soft abilities. The following are examples of soft skills, often known as people skills or interpersonal abilities:
- Communication skills: One of the most crucial talents in project management is the ability to communicate clearly and efficiently. Program managers connect with members of project teams, outside vendors, important stakeholders, and project sponsors using a variety of technologies and platforms. In order to effectively manage teams, good communication entails the ability to comprehend and detect nonverbal indicators such as body language and tone of voice in addition to the basics like speaking and writing.
- Leadership abilities: Program managers must be able to communicate clearly and effectively, inspire, influence, motivate, and generate consensus within their team, particularly during times of high stress.
- Decisiveness: Just as it is critical to consider all team member’s thoughts and opinions, a program manager must be able to summarize the debate and make a clear conclusion when necessary to keep the project moving forward.
- Time management: Program managers must be able to successfully manage their team members’ time and efforts to ensure that all tasks are performed, critical project milestones are met, and the project stays on track. This entails having the foresight to foresee problems, allowing enough buffer time between jobs, and being able to reallocate resources as needed.
- Conflict resolution: Throughout the course of a project, tensions and disputes are sure to arise. This might occur amongst team members or between stakeholders. For the sake of the team, stakeholders, and project, a program manager must be adept at handling these circumstances and defusing tensions.
Hard skills are frequently far more observable and quantifiable than soft talents, and they tend to be more related to specific procedures. The following are some of the most critical hard skills that program managers should develop:
- Budgeting skills: Program managers are responsible for ensuring that a project stays within its given budget at all times by controlling expenditures and modifying resources as needed.
- Risk management: Project management entails not only the management of people and resources but also the management of risk. Some of the most significant aspects of project management are identifying weak areas of the team and project, calculating the likelihood and impact of a worst-case scenario, and putting contingency measures in place.
- Familiarity with Data: Many key performance indicators (KPIs) will be chosen at the start of any project. These metrics will be benchmarked and tracked throughout the project to determine progress and, ultimately, whether the project achieves its goal. Project managers are responsible for comprehending and interpreting this information, as well as communicating it to their team members and the project’s main stakeholders.
- Technical expertise: Program managers must be knowledgeable in their sector or subject in order to properly manage a project. It’s nearly hard to manage a project if you don’t understand the details needed in bringing it to fruition.
Steps to becoming a Program Manager
To become a program manager, you might take a variety of routes. Others “accidentally” become project managers after gradually taking on more responsibility in their present employment or switching from seemingly unrelated fields. Whatever path you choose, there are five steps to becoming a project manager that you should consider:
- Recognize your existing project management abilities.
You have done some aspects of project management if you have ever planned, led, budgeted, scheduled, or recorded the progress of a project. Though you may not have realized it at the time these previous experiences may have exposed you to some of the abilities you will need as a program manager. If you have a lot of project management expertise, you could be ready to apply for project manager positions or approach your boss about becoming one. If you have a total of three years of project management experience, you can apply to take the Project Management Professional (PMP) certification test, which may open doors for you in the project management field.
- Build project management experience
Many project managers start in non-management roles on a team. IT project managers, for example, may work as an IT associate or as a business analyst helping the IT team for several years. As they gain industry experience, take on managerial responsibilities, improve organizational abilities and learn to interact with the members of their team. This being said, if you want to improve your project management abilities, search for possibilities at your current job. Whether you work in a hospital or retail store, tech firm or restaurant, chances are various items need to be planned, implemented, or improved. Check to see whether you can contribute to these initiatives. Approach your manager with suggestions for how you can contribute and let them know you’re interested in gaining project management experience
- Improve your project management abilities.
It’s a good idea to brush up on the technical and interpersonal abilities required for project management. The following are some of the most prevalent talents included in project manager job descriptions:
- Management of risks
- Budgeting
- Flexible project management
- Waterfall project management
- Scrum
- Organization
- Communication
- Leadership
You can improve your abilities by taking subject-specific classes, studying for a certification, or putting them into practice in the workplace.
- Keep your eyes on getting entry-level positions.
You don’t have to work your way up the project management ladder from within a team. To develop important abilities, many project managers begin their careers in entry-level organizational positions. In your search, keep an eye out for the following titles:
- Project coordinator
- Junior project manager
- Operations assistant
- Administrative assistant
- Operations coordinator
- Associate project manager.
- Think about getting a project management certification.
A project management qualification or credential can help you get your foot in the door. Here are a few certifications you ought to acquire:
- Associate in Project Management Certification (CAPM)
- Professional Certification in Google Project Management
- Professional Project Manager (PMP)
- Professional Scrum Master I Certified Scrum Master (PSM I)
- ICAgile Certified Professional (ICP).
Where Program Managers Work
Project managers are required in a wide range of fields. Project-oriented work is popular in the commercial service, oil and gas, finance and insurance, manufacturing, health, construction, and utility industries all over the world.
Program Manager Salary Scale
The wage of a program manager varies depending on the country in which they work and their experience. Given this, a program manager’s yearly salary can range from $51,000 to $111,000 per year. The average program manager pay in the United States is $75,474, according to Glassdoor, with additional cash compensation ranging from $1,541 to $19,755. This project lead compensation, however, can be significantly lower or higher depending on your talents, experience, and knowledge. Project management jobs are still in high demand, and annual pay for project managers at all levels is likely to rise over the next 10 years. The average income for a project manager in the UK is £49,109 per year. In London, United Kingdom Area, the average additional cash compensation for a Project Manager is £4,387, with a range of £1,169 to £16,462.