Take It To The Next Level As A TPM

This post is going to focus on a couple of methodologies and thought process on how to “Take It To The Next Level As A TPM”. We will focus on three types of methodologies to get promoted. I believe if you keep in mind these methods it will  help you analyze where you stand and where you want to be. And also position yourself accordingly within your organization. 

Most of the thoughts below can be used for other roles throughout any engineering organization but my focus here is going to be for TPMs. You can read about the other roles in tech organizations here. 

See also – How To Become A Technical Program Manager (TPM)?

Before we dive deep into how you could get promoted. You need to understand that as you try to move up the chain of command, you need to understand a couple of things. One a TPM needs to do whatever it takes, no task is beneath you no task is too difficult. Here are a couple of other things I would recommend keeping in mind. 

Things To Keep In Mind While Taking It To The Next Level As A TPM:-

• Get Help When Needed: Evaluate if you need help and get the help you require to be successful. If you are weak in an area that is required for the program to be successful get your colleagues to guide and mentor you. Use them to bounce ideas. Know your weak spots and learn to improve on them. 
• Executive Sponsor: As you move to more complex and challenging programs you need to have an executive sponsor who can guide you and be of help when you need help. The executive sponsor also is a good reference when you want to get promoted. He/She is also a good benchmark of your skills as they have a view of a larger pool of people at a certain level you are targeting. You can use your sponsor’s feedback as a yardstick to measure you against individuals who are senior to you. 
• Get Feedback: It’s important to understand what you are good at and what your weaknesses are. Act on the feedback you receive and more importantly report back to the person as you work through them and ask them if they see a difference. Don’t wait till the end of an engagement to get feedback, as it might be too late. 
• Double Down On Your Strengths: Once you know what your strengths are double down on taking up programs that are in line with what your strengths are. 
• Org Growth: Personal growth is often accelerated when the organization grows. It’s key to understand what phase of the product life cycle the product team or the organization is at. An org that is going through a growth spurt is likely to have more opportunities for you to grow. 
• Stretch Goals: In most cases, you need to be performing well above your current level to be promoted. Talk to your manager to get these opportunities else create some for yourself 🙂
• Conversations With Your Manager: Though this is quite obvious, I think most people take this most important step lightly. Of all the things you can do the most obvious and important thing to do is to have frequent conversations with your manager and possibly his/her skip. And ask direct questions if they believe that you are ready or what more they need from you to move up. 
• Peer-Evaluation: If you would like to move up a level another good yardstick is to talk and measure yourself against the people who are one level above you. Have frequent one on ones with TPMs who are a level above you to gauge what problems they are solving and the challenges they are facing. 
• Alignment With The Organizational Vision/Goals: Whatever level you currently might be at, it is imperative to be aware of the overarching vision and goals that your organizational leaders have set and in tandem understand what value you are adding to that vision or goal of the overall organization. 

If you would like to learn more about TPM – Here’s my blog on everything about technical program management.

Three Methodologies To Level Up As A TPM

Methodology 1: Scope and Impact 

Scope and Impact are good yardsticks to measure oneself. 

Scope: Think about scope form a feature standpoint do you own, do you own a sliver of a feature or the whole feature or do you own a set of (portfolio) features or the entire product? Think of this as a spectrum from smaller scope to a large scope.  

Impact: Impact can be defined as the outcome of a particular program you own and more importantly how it ties into the KPIs for the org as a whole. In general larger impact does more often have a higher scope but this is not always true. 

So always keep in mind the scope and its impact in mind. Work towards increasing your scope of ownership and in turn measuring the impact it would have on the organization. As discussed scope and impact are immaterial if you do not understand the organizational priorities and goals. I would go one level further to say that as organizational goals become distilled down understand what your org leaders have signed up for and how your programs align with their goals.  

Methodology 2: By Ambiguity 

Technical Program Managers by Ambiguity

Every organization, however, mature they might be, has problems they need to work on. The question is what is the sale of a problem could you possibly work on. And do you have the experience and aptitude to work on more ambiguous problems. As leaders in your organization see you have the ability to deal with more ambiguous problems you are ideally are given those opportunities. 

The above chart shows you the various levels of TPMs and their Execution, Ambiguity and Risk Profiles. Though the chart above specifically talks about ambiguity, increased ambiguity by itself carries more risk and requires more thought leadership. 

As you pick up new programs its critical to understand the type of programs you choose to work on and your comfort level in dealing with more ambiguous programs.

Methodology 3: Focus On How, What, Why