WHAT DOES A DESIGN PROGRAM MANAGER DO?

Published: Oct 18, 2024 - The Design Program Manager leads cross-functional teams to ensure timely product deliveries and project schedule adherence. Coordinates and drives regular tracking meetings with customers and team members to maintain open communication and current status updates. Actively involved in pricing, bid preparation, and contract management to optimize customer account profitability and ensure cost-effectiveness.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Design Program Manager

1. Lead Design Program Manager Duties

  • Stakeholder Engagement: Meet directly with project stakeholders and clients to understand requirements, plan and strategize on new products, define design activities and identify success metrics.
  • UX Strategy Guidance: Guide and support UX strategy and process definition within the company.
  • Design Optimization: Optimize Design and Design Thinking practices to resonate with the business, ensuring a relentless focus on quality and scale.
  • Cross-functional Collaboration: Collaborate cross-functionally with designers, program teams, developers, user research, and others to plan project resourcing and timelines.
  • Process Management: Ensure a smooth product design process.
  • Team Accountability: Ensure the team is accountable for the agreed-upon norms.
  • Metrics Transparency: Provide transparency to the team and stakeholders by ensuring metrics are relevant, available, and up-to-date.
  • Continuous Improvement Leadership: Promote continuous improvement within the design team.
  • Risk Management: Collaborate with other project leaders to drive progress against goals and objectives, effectively manage risks and coordinate mitigation efforts.
  • Presentation Leadership: Prepared and led presentations for team members and executives.
  • Vision Alignment: Collaborate with Development Leads, IT, and Business Owners to promote a shared vision and roadmap.
  • Team Facilitation: Drive design team awareness and facilitate execution of team goals.
  • Presentation Preparation: Prepare and lead presentations to management, clients, and peer groups.
  • Meeting Management: Schedule and lead project and communication meetings with clients.
  • Recruitment and Compliance: Participate in hiring activities and fulfilling affirmative action obligations and ensuring compliance with the equal employment opportunity policy.
  • Report Standardization: Promote consistency and standardization amongst the various types of reports and databases.

2. Design Program Manager Details

  • Customer Feedback Management: Prepare, distribute, and analyze customer surveys and self-assessments.
  • Performance Reporting: Provide performance reporting and analysis for monthly Operations Reviews and quarterly Customer Performance Reviews.
  • Issue Resolution: Receive and resolve customer issues and complaints.
  • Customer Advocacy: Act as a customer advocate to drive prioritization of projects and responses to problems/issues.
  • Strategic Support: Support account planning, strategy development, and sales.
  • Needs Analysis: Work with sales, business development, finance, and customer to understand the customer’s needs.
  • Proposal Development: Develop proposals to meet those needs and achieve company objectives.
  • Contract Negotiation: Participate in contract negotiations and help develop long-term agreements on processes, charges, etc.
  • Data Collection: Collect information pertaining to inventory, revenue forecasting, expenses, financial profitability, and customer satisfaction.
  • Performance Analysis: Analyze performance relative to targets.
  • Problem Resolution Planning: Develop and implement plans to address problem areas.
  • Supplier Quality Accountability: Be accountable for the quality of work delivered by external suppliers as applicable.
  • Senior Management Interface: Interface with senior managers on issues related to the area of expertise.
  • Management Interaction: Interact with and influences management and/or customers on significant issues.

3. Design Program Manager Responsibilities

  • Team Leadership: Work as a member of and leads cross-functional teams and maybe multi-functional workgroup or project team consisting of one or more support staff and/or tech/professional staff.
  • Account Management: Be responsible for day-to-day activities of customer accounts to ensure that product deliveries are on time and that projects/programs are on schedule, including MRP volumes and commitments, new product development support, manufacturing readiness reviews and contract execution.
  • Communication Coordination: Coordinate and host regular (as needed) program tracking meetings with the customer and internal account team members to ensure ongoing communication and up-to-date progress/status reporting occur.
  • Strategic Planning: Develop plans to meet commitments and schedule for customers.
  • Problem Resolution: Develop action plans to correct out-of-plan conditions.
  • Profitability Management: Manage customer account profitability.
  • Forecasting and Monitoring: Provide forecasting and planning and monitoring of efficiency and execution of account strategies.
  • Pricing Strategy: Participate heavily in the pricing/bid preparation process and contract development and management.
  • Cost Analysis Collaboration: Work with cost engineering, finance, and SCM staff to coordinate efforts to analyze costs and price variances.
  • Inventory Management: Monitor the impact on the inventory of order changes and establish procedures and charges to the customers.
  • Customer Relations: Communicate frequently with customers to help ensure satisfaction with the company and the products.
  • Feedback Integration: Solicit performance feedback and communicate information to internal teams and departments.

4. Design Program Manager Accountabilities

  • Problem Solving: Proactively inspects, detects, and juggles to find the best way to make things happen.
  • Leadership: Provides real leadership and acts as the hub of knowledge and source of truth for initiatives.
  • Influence and Insight: Influences people, anticipates and resolves issues, sees the big picture.
  • Motivation: Inspires individuals and teams to recognize the value of getting things done.
  • Team Coordination: Nudges, leads, empowers, facilitates, and communicates to get teams to make things happen.
  • Digital Knowledge Application: Leverages broad digital knowledge to identify and drive solutions.
  • Cross-functional Engagement: Understands overall strategy, execution tactics, business drivers, technical capabilities, and more to effectively engage cross-organization teams.
  • Multilingual Communication: Speaks the languages of design, business, and technology to drive progress through respect and understanding.
  • Multi-tasking and Strategic Communication: Works on multiple initiatives at one time, using strong communication skills to manage time and expectations appropriately with a demonstrated ability to think strategically about the overall experience.
  • Process Advocacy: Advocates for smart application of process to get highest quality work at the fastest pace.
  • Agile Adaptation: Keeps pace with the ever-changing digital environment iterating designs through Lean XD, Agile, and other modern design/build processes.
  • Crisis Management: Responsive and flexible to ever-changing needs and environment while staying calm to effectively problem-solve and gain alignment among stakeholders.
  • Project Advancement: Identifies and addresses blockers, and pushes projects forward from beginning to end.
  • Industry Innovation: Works with self-driving vehicles and shapes the next wave of industrial technology at a leading robotics startup.

5. Design Program Manager Functions

  • Relationship Building: Build meaningful cross-functional relationships.
  • Problem Solving: Leverage relationships to inform problem solving and improve design team's focus and velocity.
  • Team Management: Manage Design Program Managers (DPMs) who are supporting key products.
  • Team Development: Manage and grow the DPM team to support product groups across the Family of Apps as the team works collaboratively with other orgs.
  • Operational Strategy: Provide operational strategy for complex problems associated with a growing organization and limited design resources.
  • Opportunity Selection: Choose the highest impact opportunities and execute.
  • Resource Planning: Ensure resourcing both the short-term needs as well as looking ahead and planning for the next big challenge across product design teams.
  • Process Development: Develop lightweight, repeatable processes, standards, workflows, and tools that keep the team nimble and successful in a culture that values moving fast and iterating quickly.
  • Strategic Partnership: Act as a strategic partner to design leadership on large, complex problems and operational programs.