4 traits of effective program managers

Charlie Owen asked Joe Belfiore, Corporate Vice President, Entertainment and Devices eHome Division, what he thought made a good program manager at Microsoft. As you can see, Joe's advice can apply to just about any company that uses program managers.

1) Maniacally focus on building a product your customers will love.

• Pound, pound, pound on the features while they are being developed all the way through the process.
• Constantly ask 'How do we know this is good?'
• Perceive the reaction of others to your features.
• Know others will want to have an opinion.
• Recognize constraints make it hard to develop products customers will love.
• This takes energy, persistence and creativity.

2) Look at the constraints and find creative right angles to solve the problems.

• Generate 100 ideas which could be solutions.
• Look for low cost + high benefit features.
• OK for high costs + high benefit features if the benefit is truly high.
• Avoid high cost + low benefit features and low cost + low benefit features.
• This takes innovation and creativity.

3) Take a people approach.

• How you go about getting work done is as important as getting work done.
• The degree you do 'people things' well affects you greatly.
• High integrity.
• Not rude.
• Predictable.
• Acknowledging.
• Relieve pressure.
• Create a positive environment.
• 'You have to do this' doesn't work.
• Valuing the people is more important than the feature.
• It's more valuable / desirable if the group decides on its own.
• It's like good parenting.
• Much more effective in having authority and not using it.

4) Go and talk with customers / partners.