by Paula Dieli | Dec 15, 2020 | Effective Meetings, Less is More, PMO, Program Management, Program Manager
While running the PMO at Zendesk, one of my most naturally instinctive program managers came to me one day in frustration, worried that there were too many people in her program meeting. It had started out well enough, but after a few weeks, given the importance and...
by Paula Dieli | Nov 30, 2020 | Operations, Planning, PMO, Program Management, Program Manager
An effective partnership between program management and operations is a key part of ensuring a company runs well. A good example of such a partnership is planning — long-range, annual, or quarterly. Whether doing planning at the corporate or the organizational level,...
by Paula Dieli | Nov 17, 2020 | Collaboration, PMO, Program Management, Program Manager, Teamwork
Program managers are all about getting others to do things. They know who the domain experts are and they harness all of that wonderful expertise to get a program across the line. They facilitate rather than do the work themselves. They are objective, focused on the...
by Paula Dieli | Nov 10, 2020 | Alignment, Experience, PMO, Program Management, Program Manager
I first became exposed to the role of program manager when I was working in France. At that point in my career, I had worked as a software engineer, product manager, and technical support engineer and also spoke both French and English. I was asked to take on the role...
by Paula Dieli | Oct 20, 2020 | Lower the Bar, PMO, Program Management, Program Manager, Work Life Balance
Several years ago, I was elected president of a non-profit organization. There were 12 board members only two of whom were from the technology industry. I approached my role with enthusiasm, using the same high bar that I had cultivated in the tech industry where the...
by Paula Dieli | Oct 14, 2020 | PMO, Program Management, Program Manager, Risk Management, Status Report
Program managers will tell you that writing status reports can be tricky, especially when things aren’t going so well. But the status needs to be shared with stakeholders regardless, and program team members shouldn’t view a yellow or red status as a black eye....
