ABSTRACT
One of my peers once exclaimed to me, “90% of a PM’s job is breaking bad news.” I paused for a moment, thought about it, and responded otherwise. The program manager’s job is not reactive-it is proactive. It is the program manager’s job to anticipate roadblocks and issues. Issues inevitably arise, and you need to research and be ready with options and potential resolutions. If you wait to present issues until formal governance meetings, it is often too late in the process to effectively manage the issues in a proactive manner. This is where what I call informal governance comes into play. Through regular conversations with your program sponsor and other key stakeholders, you can gather input and approval on how to handle potential risks and issues between governance gates. This approach allows your program to continue its forward momentum and stay on track. By doing this, you essentially turn the governance meeting into a “rubber stamp” event as concerns are addressed proactively. (This sure helps take the stress out of those governance meetings, too.)
Building on the last chapter on effective meeting management, there are many different meeting formats and related documents that may be used to handle program status reporting and escalations. This chapter delves into more detail on program status meetings and program status reports, including discussion on the infamous program health stoplight indicators. The chapter closes with a four-step process to follow to drive program escalations to a satisfactory resolution.
