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👨‍🏫 The Pillars are flawed.

Ahem…

Before we get into the pillars, a bit of an aside on my personal journey writing about The TPM Craft.

My writing on LinkedIn and in this newsletter is informal documentation of my growth as a Technical Program Manager. That’s how it all started.

I began writing online purely as a forcing function to crystalize my thinking and reflect on my professional experiences. This helped me capitalize on growth.

Writing to myself (ie in a google doc) didn’t motivate me to reflect seriously enough.

Writing in public forced me to reflect intentionally and write with a drive for clarity.

There is a trend in the start-up world called building in public. With my writings, I’m not exactly building a business, but I’m building my TPM career in public.

There is a scary reality of writing online frequently: misguided opinions are publicly viewable.

(if you’ve ever felt this, feel free to email me directly and we can commiserate!)

It’s a constant risk that content creators have to live with. Putting our opinions out there, sharing our paradigms, and course-correcting when necessary.

With that being said, let’s dive into The TPM Craft Pillars and how they need to be adjusted for The TPM Craft 2.0.

The TPM Craft: v1.0 to v2.0

🏆 Central Pillar: Program and Project Management Excellence - Master the art of planning, executing, and closing projects efficiently, ensuring that you not only meet but exceed expectations every time.

⚙️ Supporting Pillar: Technical Versatility - Equip yourself with a diverse set of technical skills that make you an invaluable asset to your team, from understanding code to troubleshooting systems.

🧭 Supporting Pillar: Product Operations and Strategy - Align your efforts with the company’s top strategic priorities and standard product operations to drive meaningful change through the company.

🤝 Foundation: Leadership - Learn how to inspire your team, communicate effectively, and make strategic decisions that lead to successful initiative outcomes.

2 Critical Changes

Let’s not waste time. Here’s version 2.0 of The TPM Craft:

There are 2 major changes. Let’s take a look:

• Leadership: In v1.0, there was a dedicated Pillar to the skill of Leadership while Trust was the Foundation. In v2.0, Leadership has moved to the Foundation and Trust has been “removed”.

  • Why? Leadership is a common thread through all aspects of being a Technical Program Manager. Leadership is HOW you show up in each pillar. Trust was formerly the foundation, but it is simply included in the broad umbrella of trust.

• Product: In v1.0, there was no dedicated skill or focus on Product Management. This was a gross oversight.

  • Why? Technical Program Managers have to understand key principles of product operations and strategy. Without such knowledge, a TPM inevitably ends up focusing on Outputs of programs or projects rather than Outcomes.

For your viewing pleasure, below is v1 of The TPM Craft.

What inspired these changes?

Here’s the simple answer: with more time in the TPM role, my understanding of the nuances and fundamentals continues to deepen.

I welcome this change. I openly share the fact that I don’t know everything there is to know about The TPM Craft. I’m learning, just like all other TPM’s, no matter the stage of growth you’re in.

This is what motivates me to be a TPM though: The vastness of the role and the long path ahead of growth opportunities.

A Deeper Look into The TPM Craft v2.0: The Pillars

The pillars now better reflect a crucial aspect of the TPM role: reality.

Reality of the day-to-day collaboration and the conversations a TPM is constantly involved in. Product Management and Engineering are the staple relationships for Technical Program Managers.

• A dedicated pillar to Product Operations and Strategy reflects the relationship with Product Management.

• A dedicated pillar to Technical Versatility reflects the relationship with Engineering.

• A dedicated pillar to Program and Project Management is where you’re primary value-add to these adjacent roles exist. This is why its the central pillar.

A Deeper Look into The TPM Craft v2.0: The Foundation

The Leadership Foundation is critical, but unfortunately still fairly ambiguous in its name. So let’s dig into that together for a minute.

In the context of Technical Program Management, there are specific behaviors that are applicable across all 3 pillars. These behaviors are what set Good TPM’s apart from Great TPM’s.

• Clear Communication (both written and spoken)

• Influencing Without Authority & Building Trust

• Building Morale

• Empathy

• Effective Decision Making

• Curiosity and Learning

• Strategic Thinking

• Conflict Resolution

• Negotiating

• and likely more…

These soft skills are the hardest to improve upon.

You can always take a course on program or project management, product management, or system design. But these leadership behaviors are often only cultivated through experience (the good times and the hard times).

To be honest, this foundation could use some refining to specify the “top” leadership behaviors for TPM’s. But even that becomes challenging because of the core leadership idea of situational leadership.

Depending on the situation, some behaviors will be needed more than others. Leadership is not static, it is extremely dynamic.

Perhaps we could boil it down to: Situational Leadership Adaptability. But that’s not very actionable.

Drilling deeper on this is reserved for another day.

(REPLY TO THIS EMAIL: If you’ve got some thoughts or approaches to TPM Leadership, I’m really interested in learning from you!)

Final Thoughts

The v2.0 of The TPM Craft structure is more accurate. It is a reflection of my growth and reflection of executing in the TPM role for multiple years.

It is unlikely to address every situation or nuance of the role, but it gives structure to the role that I wish I had when I started.

People

🤝 Kunal Shah, a Product Leader.

I was just barely introduced to Kunal while listening to Lenny’s Podcast (great podcast, give it a listen!)

Kunal’s perspective and approach to product development is unique and powerful. Kunal shares his thoughts on both X (Twitter) and LinkedIn.

Who is he? Well, borrowing from Lenny’s introduction…

This episode was fascinating. It opened up the world of India beyond my current understanding. I’ve consistently worked closely with many people from India, and grown a deep respect for the culture, people, and beliefs.

What I found really fascinating was Kunal’s commentary on the start-up culture in India and how the culture of India influences product mindset and leadership.

He also shares thoughts on his own product framework, Delta 4, which is surprisingly simple yet insightful. Here’s the episode below:

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