Golden Rules for Program Managers: #4

Golden Rules for Program Managers: #4: "Make Things Easy for People

Program managers are often the hunters and gatherers of information. We have to run to several sources to collect information and then package** it all up in a way that will make sense to our audience. As you're doing this, your goal should be to make things as easy for others as possible. Here's an example.

Imagine you have a form that requires input from an engineering manager, a tech lead, and a product marketing manager. You could send an email to all 3 of them, attach the form and say 'please fill in your part and send it back to me.'

However if you want to make it easier for these folks you can send an individual email to each one of them. (I've found people are much more likely to answer an email that's sent only to them, rather than one that's sent to a large group or an alias.) Cut and paste just the questions that you need them to answer into the email, and ask them to supply the data in an email response. This saves them the time o"