What Does a Program Manager Do

Program managers are professionally qualified people who contribute greatly to the success of a project in an organization. Most of them have a bachelor's or master's degrees in the fields like computer science, information technology or management sciences.

Sound programming knowledge is a plus point for these managers, who combine these programming skills with managerial talent, to give the desired output for their organization.

A program manager primarily looks after the successful running of difficult programs and projects. He understands the project requirements and plans accordingly by assigning duties to each member of the team. It is thus important for him to be a team player.

He develops RFP (Requests for Proposals) and looks after other important tasks such as project budget and costs. Overlooking the cost factor is very essential, because efficient utilization of available funds can alone lead to an improvement in the total net profits of the firm.

Program managers are experts in risk management and have the capabilities to reduce risks to the lowest level. This naturally increases the chances of success in the project. Employee performance evaluation, planning of the project life cycle deployment, and management of conflicts, are some other important tasks that are part of the field.

Some program managers are known to work in the marketing field also, and they basically do tasks like development and timely execution of marketing campaigns. In the fast growing field of health care, they have the challenge of developing ways for prevention as well as treatment of ailments.

In the field of education, they act as specialists who prepare educational courses and projects. The training programs established by them have revolutionized the way of learning in this modern era.

Program managers can definitely get promotions to the senior management of the company, provided they work with passion, dedication, and surpass the performance expectations from them. If you have found the job description interesting, then you should also be aware of the qualities which you need for becoming a program manager.

These are listed as follows:

• Hardworking nature
• Excellent computer, programming and computation skills
• Mathematical ability
• Team building ability
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills

As mentioned before, this is one of the most promising careers in the I.T. industry. Naturally, the salaries of program managers will be very high due to the demand for their skills in the market. The average salary is pegged at $134,000 per year as per salary.com on salaries of IT jobs.

Those in health care can make anything between $75,000 to $140,000 per year. Software program managers can earn around $95,000 which is also quite good.

Such highly qualified professionals will be in great demand in the days to come, and hence it is the time that you get degrees from reputed schools to buck the trend.