In today's competitive consulting market, Program and Project Managers have direct access to the business leaders of their customers. In particular, my access is typically to at least the Program Management Office (PMO) and in most instances, the executive suite of the customer. As an Enterprise Program Manager, I am uniquely positioned within a customer to discuss the overall business strategy and how technology products can assist the customer in moving their business forward or solve unique technical challenges.
Given this positioning and by gaining a customer's confidence by completing projects within the constraints agreed to in the contracts, the Program Manager can continue a program indefinitely by farming the customer. This is a mutually beneficial situation as the customer gets a team with which they are already familiar and comfortable with as well as a team with a proven history of sucessful delivery; and the consulting company gains additional work from the customer.
The question then becomes does this additional work distract the Program or Project Manager from the tasks at hand. This is an individual question for each PM and relates directly to the culture within the consulting company and the overall skills of the PM.
- Does the consulting company sales team feel comfortable with selling by a delivery organization?
- Is the PM converservant in the customer's business and available technology?
- Does the PM have higher level and future discussions with the appropriate people within the customer to be able to identify future business?
- Does the PM have sufficient negotiation and contracting skills to close new business?
- Does the PM and team have sufficient estimation skills to effectively scope new work?
