What is Program Management?
Program management coordinates a group of related projects (and other work) as one entity to capture benefits you couldn't get by managing them separately. Projects deliver outputs; programs deliver outcomes and benefits. The program manager's job is alignment, integration, and benefit delivery — not running each project's daily work.
The litmus test: if the components would succeed just as well managed independently, it's a portfolio grouping, not a program.
Worked example
A bank's "digital transformation" program contains a mobile-app project, a core-system upgrade, a branch redesign, and a retraining effort. Any one alone changes little; sequenced and integrated, they deliver the actual benefit — customers migrating to digital channels and cost-per-transaction falling 30%. Managing that interplay is program management.