Depends on the company. Since a Program Manager sits above multiple projects, some companies think of them as just a coordination role -- a little more than a PM but not yet a director. But other companies think of them more like super-PMs, parachuting into their poorer-performing projects and taking over until the PM and the team can get their act together. In these tougher Program Manager roles, they're responsible for the day-to-day life-or-death of the project.<p>Sadly, more companies are leaning to the idea that the Program Manager is more like a fancy clerk. They end up pretty stressed out and under-appreciated.<p>This gets to the central question: How do you create, run, and release a huge effort that might take hundreds of man-years, like Office 2012? Something like that covers a lot more ground than simply kicking out some code. There are all sorts of things that need to be coordinated.<p>Companies are still sorting through how to set up and run programs, in my opinion. There is a LOT of room for screwing things up between 5 guys and 150 guys. There are a lot of tricks to use, but many times people want simple answers and the simple answers are not forthcoming.<p>A lot of time employees just go to their PM and then go around the Program Manager directly to the higher-ups in the organization. Makes the whole thing quickly devolve into a Charlie Foxtrot.<p>(Disclaimer: I've done quite a bit of setting up programs and helping companies manage them)<p>EDIT: I've describe a Program Manager as being "over" the entire effort. Some companies just kick them out to the side of the whole thing. This is an even worse setup, because the business drivers aren't directly connected to the work.