A Program Manager’s Role in Digital Transformation

The digital transformation undergoing in most businesses requires the program manager to manage through a number of challenging and complex problems within organizations. This transformation is subjecting the digital project and program managers to new roles and responsibilities, many of which are not well defined. As a result, managers have to improvise and become proactive in navigating their enterprises through the transformation journey.

The following are some of the typical scenarios that program managers have to deal with in navigating their organizations through a successful digital transformation.

Introduction of new technologies within the enterprise

New digital systems powering the enterprise of today and the future are grounded in state of the art technologies such as those of cloud, big data, mobile apps technologies, social media, and more. The building of these systems and integrating these systems with others requires the program managers to understand the complexity related to the injection of these new technologies in the fabric of the enterprise. This may be a departure from the traditional role of project and program managers where they consider themselves as non-technical. However, a basic understanding of these technologies and how they come together to form business systems of the future is needed for project and program managers to be successful in their new roles.

Understanding of delivery lifecycles

The nature of the digital enterprise and how it operates as an entity in a global digital ecosystem is necessitating various types of business and technical systems, processes, and other types of milestones. A program manager responsible to deliver these milestones and artifacts must come to understand the delivery life-cycles extremely well before they can hope to achieve tangible business outcomes and success. In many cases, program managers also have to become proactive and define the overall delivery process for their teams and other stakeholders so delivery can proceed smoothly.

Managing new roles within and external to the enterprise

The digital transformation initiatives have resulted in new roles in the industry. These include but are not limited to content strategists and developers, chief digital officers, digital designers, and a number of other roles. Understanding how these roles function within the enterprise and how to manage them in the context of the overall delivery process is an essential element of the program manager’s job.

Understanding of the needed skills

A program manager that is responsible to deliver tangible business outcomes and benefits to the enterprise through the successful execution of their programs must be well aware of the entire skillset needed to deliver on those commitments. Many times such skills can be hard to come by and therefore needs extra focus and attention.

Understanding of new business constructs

Delivering systems in the digital age requires understanding of constructs and concepts such as customer journey, customer experience, customer journey, customer delight factors and more. A program manager leading to deliver systems in the digital environments of today must be able to relate to those concepts and align with the business leaders to ensure the success of their programs.