5 Attributes of a Good Program Director

• Recently I have been asked by our people and business partner about what are the top 5 attributes in my experience that make a good PD.  This is a self reflection I would like to share.

1. Strong Leadership Skills:

• Need to apply situational leadership and being a quick adapter to different program challenge environment. Confident to work with C-levels but being humble to ask for support as needed. Not every PD has the full profile to play both Contract Fulfillment Responsible (CFR) and Contract Solution Responsible (CSR) roles. Therefore, it is important to know your weakness and find the right A-team to bring the best out of program.

2. Strong Stakeholder management/ Effective communications skill:

• A PD spends most of his/her time as a communicator to connect with people at all levels and therefore strong  internal and external key stakeholders management is essential.
• At times, applying data analysis skills and presentation skills to trouble shoot an issue and recover a program is needed. For example, a PD need to have information on  all his/her 100+ resources in the team and drew into details to track what each resources are doing and if the resources are working in a efficient way. However, towards to management team, a PD needs to be able to present the information in a consolidated/high level view. Also bring the key message across in a short time in order to gain leadership teams' support to move forward.

3. Take ownership:

• A PD needs to take ownership and be courageous to present your company in front of customer. Even at time to take blame for the mistake the team made without your involvement in the past. A PD shall always act professional to gain customer trust.

4. Consultation sales skills/ Know your numbers:

• A PD needs to know his/her numbers and also understands customer's pain point in order to be the right partner with the customer. Typically a 3-5 years business plan view is needed from strategic point of view. 

5. Inspires a shared vision and take new approached:

• Most time, a PD needs to do drive transformation and change management in the program. To make this success, PD needs to bring new ways of working into the program. This is not limited to tool and process but can be a organisational culture change and influence both internal and external customer mindset shifts. For example, to  bring automation and  DevOps in to program, it requires top management's buy in to support the initial investment and engineers' support to give up current ways of working. The PD needs to share his/her vision and be transparent about the challenges ahead.