Program management is always team management

Experts in building teams, program managers are increasingly asked by management to play pivotal roles in expanding the impact and benefits of teamwork from the engineering and manufacturing organizations to all units of the business enterprise. These requests are partially due to the experience of many program managers with integrated technologies such as computer aided engineering, computer integrated manufacturing, and just-in-time, which require corporatewide teams to understand and implement. They are also due to changes in the work force, reduction in the layers of management, and challenges from worldwide competitors. It is projected that program managers of the 1990's will apply a mixture of line and staff management in setting the direction and standards for their teams during a decade of business, cultural, economic and technological turbulence. Program managers will shape both the corporate and product direction to a much greater degree primarily due to the responsibility bestowed upon them by management as the organizational hierarchy is flattened by function and segmented by product.<>