BA (15/52): A How-To Guide on Technical Program Management for Product Managers (Part 2)
Now you understand the basics, have enjoyed doing the work but rather have team of TPMs. So, when do you hire what kind of TPM?
Hello Product Managers -
I am sure you have thoroughly enjoyed the Part 1 of this How-To guide on technical program management for Product Managers. By now the organization is marveling at your execution and TPMing skills.
Eventually, I am sure you want to get back to your day job building out strategies, roadmaps, and not writing tickets (I jest…) which means, you want to hire your first TPM.
Congratulations - this means your company is scaling.
But, where to start?
What kind of talent do I need to hire?
Are there specific skill sets you should look for?
What about specific experiences?
How many years of experience?
What company to hire from?
So many questions…
Don’t worry - in Part 2 of this guide, we will talk about the 4 classes of TPMs that I have seen in the industry and when to hire each.
A Coach, A Pathfinder, A Conductor, A Padawan walk into a bar
I have come across many types, calibers, and unique TPM personalities. They are all expert Project Managers and have the requisite elementary TPM skills.
However, there are certain things that makes each of them unique. Looking through my notes and observations, all TPMs fall under 4 classes of TPMs:
Pathfinder TPM
Strengths & Capabilities
Experts in dealing with and clearing intense fog of ambiguity and uncertainty with requirements and features in general.
They have worked in numerous 1.0 projects of varying scale and complexity.
They are experts in risk management and handling difficult turning points in projects with calm and collected composure.
They are multi-disciplinary experts well versed in numerous areas of technology - app development, cloud, backend, infra, devops etc.
They can handle or break through to difficult personalities.
Master narrators with superb written, verbal, presentation skills
High levels of emotional intelligence specifically excellent collaborative personalities with the ability to quickly blend in with the engineering team.
Little or no desire to be people managers; prefer to stay as individual contributors and stick to working on products, features, projects and engineering teams. However, they are excellent team players.
Coach TPM
Strengths & Capabilities
They share similar experience and expertise as the Pathfinder class TPMs with few exceptions:
Great mentors, teachers, and natural leaders.
Natural ability to bring the best out of not just the TPM teams but engineering teams as well.
High levels of empathy and care for others.
Comfortable and have ambitions of working towards people management roles.
Master delegators and lead from the front and know when which is required.
Can guide Padawan And Conductor Class TPMs towards Pathfinder Class TPMs.
Conductor TPM
Strengths & Capabilities
Smooth operators and excellent executors within set boundaries and established processes and frameworks.
Experts in driving 1.0 products or features through continuous evolution on time and on budget (if there is such a thing).
Champions of process enforcement and adherence but highly aware of when to improvise and bypass it.
High order mindset, well organized, can quickly bring order & organization to highly cross-functional teams with ease.
Usually experts or experienced within a specific technical field.
Under mentorship from Coach Class TPMs or working on 1.0 project can become Pathfinder Class.
Padawan TPM
Strengths & Capabilities
This is a very special class and often ignored.
Solid natural foundational TPM skills either freshly starting out as a TPM or looking to break into it.
Come from both technical or non-technical backgrounds with a high affinity of rapidly understanding and learning technical concepts.
Unusually high emotional intelligence and penchant for high order mode of operating (well organized).
Excellent people persons with 2nd nature cross-collaborative mindset.
Tendency to be a sponge and can be molded to a company’s specific style of Technical Project Management.
Requires a Coach Class team to make a bet on this person and take the challenge to coach them. The ROI can be immensely high.
Who to hire when?
Pathfinder or Coach Class must be your initial hires. Why?
Your first TPM will have a few challenges with the biggest being around convincing your engineering teams to be comfortable with the notion of TPMs. The teams are already doing project management but to have it be formalized in a person requires a transition and expert hands to guide them through it. Change is always hard especially when that change is embodied in an individual.
The processes and frameworks this first hire establishes will be used by the many who after them and the organization may resist this change at first.
You want to bring these types of people into organization to create order in the naturally chaotic environment of engineering.
My recommendation: Hire the Coach and then the Pathfinder.
Your 3rd and forth or the middle section of your TPM org is filled with Conductor class.
When you have scaled to point where you can maintain projects and mentor (my recommendation: 1 Coach, 1 Pathfinder 2 Conductors) then I highly highly recommend bringing in one or two Padawan class TPMs.
These can often be interns with the desire to move into a full time TPM role or someone in a technical role (QA, Engineering, PM etc) looking to break into TPM career.
Personal Note: This is a very special class to me because I was hired at Apple when I was in this class of TPM. My Apple hiring manager took a chance on me as she saw I had the foundational skills having worked at Blackberry Engineering and the iOS Program Office was ready to bring on fresh blood to be taught in the Apple way of project management from the ground up. I will forever be grateful to her and owe her my career trajectory.
Ultimately - TPMs are more than just date managers and project plan creators. We are and can function almost as Chief of Staffs for Engineering Managers and leaders; be trusted by them to bring order and manage chaos found in complex and cross-functional engineering projects. We operate in both strategic and tactical nature, where the organization or project needs us to go. We are well versed in organization design as much as TPM skills.
Do not hire TPMs because you want some to write your Jira tickets for you.
Until next time 👋!
-Aadil
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