The Downtown Diner

Be Neutral

It's been said that a software development project is like a rubber band and all the functional representatives (development engineers, QE engineers, tech pubs writers, localization managers, support team, etc.) are holding the rubber band and standing in a circle. Your job as the program manager is to make sure the rubber band stays in the shape of a circle. If anyone starts to pull too hard on their part and the shape goes out of whack, you have to either bring them back into line or give the others a chance to pull on their parts equally hard so that your band regains its shape.

You don't want to ship a product that's egg-shaped or oblong. Round is good.

The only way to achieve this is if you, the program manager, are neutral on all fronts. When a contentious issue comes up you can't show a bias for one solution or another - you have to investigate the issue and weigh all the options with a single-minded focus: what's the best thing for the product?