So Youre the New PM Tips For a Good Start

Abstract

That great day has finally come. After working faithfully for months (and perhaps years), you are finally getting your chance to take over as a project or program manager (PM). (Note: For this article, I will consider the terms project and program equivalent and will use program from here on.) You may have eagerly sought this opportunity or it may have come quite unexpectedly. In either case, you are about to assume a leadership role for both the program and the people working on it. While there is a chance that you will be starting the program and staffing it from scratch, in this article, I will assume that you are inheriting a program that already exists in some form. This could range from a small team doing early planning to an existing program office with a long history. The question on your mind (and everyone elses) is what do you do now that you are in charge. To use the classic answer: It depends. Every program is unique, so what you should do depends on where the program is when you take it over and what it most needs to move forward. So your first jobother than to respond to crisesbefore you make any decisions is to assess the current state of the program. By the way, the skills you already have or will soon learn in assessing your program are vital to your continued success, and you will apply them frequently as the program moves forward.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 01, 2008
Accession Number
AD1015991

Entities

People

  • Owen Gadeken

Organizations

  • Defense Acquisition University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Human Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Contractors
  • Contracts
  • Directives
  • Engineering
  • Leadership
  • Logistics
  • Management Personnel
  • Management Planning And Control
  • Military Acquisition
  • Organizational Structure
  • Personality
  • Personnel Management
  • Program Management
  • Supply Chain Management
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Readers

  • Oncology
  • Organizational Process Management (OPM).
  • Systems Analysis and Design