Technical Program Manager’s Handbook: Empowering managers to efficiently manage technical projects and build a successful career path
£16.70
Explore the different aspects of the technical program manager’s role in the tech world and get ready to advance your career across the Big Five tech companies
Key Features
- Uncover the secret to becoming a successful technical program manager
- Learn some of the system design principles and architectural concepts necessary for a TPM
- Get up and running with a wide range of foundational program management topics
Book Description
The technical program manager (TPM) is a relatively new role born out of the need of the tech industry to have a specialized practitioner who speaks both tech and business and leverages this bilingual talent to get results that no one else can.
This book dives into what makes a TPM tick. You’ll find out which project and program management skills will help you shine and how you can apply your technical skills for effective results. This book looks at the TPM role across the Big Five tech companies (Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Meta) to help you discern the most effective skills to be successful no matter which company you work for.
Are you already a well-performing TPM looking to see what’s next? This book identifies the career paths for a TPM at the Big Five to help you decide the next step for you.
By the end of this book, you’ll have a clear understanding of how to be a TPM, along with a breakdown of the necessary technical and program management skills to develop a clear roadmap for your career.
What you will learn
- Investigate why a TPM is an important role in the tech industry
- Understand the purpose and uniqueness of the TPM role
- Discover what makes a successful TPM
- Navigate project management with your unique technical skills
- Explorer the career opportunities available for a TPM
- Compare the TPM role and responsibilities across the Big Five tech leaders
Who this book is for
This TPM book is for aspiring and established technical program managers in the tech industry. To get the most out of this book, you should have a basic understanding of the project management life cycle and be comfortable with technical concepts as we dive into basic system design and architecture landscapes in context to the TPM role and expectations.
Table of Contents
- Fundamentals of a Technical Program Manager
- Pillars of a Technical Program Manager
- Introduction to Program Management
- Driving Towards Clarity
- Plan Management
- Risk Management
- Stakeholder Management
- Managing a Program
- Career Paths
- Introduction to the Technical Toolset
- Code Development and System Design Expectations
- System Design and Architecture Landscape
- Enhancing Management Using Your Technical Toolset
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Additional information
| Publisher | 1st edition (16 Dec. 2022), Packt Publishing |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| File size | 7560 KB |
| Text-to-Speech | Enabled |
| Screen Reader | Supported |
| Enhanced typesetting | Enabled |
| X-Ray | Not Enabled |
| Word Wise | Not Enabled |
| Sticky notes | On Kindle Scribe |
| Print length | 214 pages |
by Behraam Wahid
For someone new to the role, this has given me an excellent baseline to get going and make impact really quickly. I’ve definitely used a lot of the content of the book to my work. I am thankful.
by Behraam Wahid
First off, let me say, writing a handbook is an ambitious task. Unlike a student or machine handbook, a lot of what a TPM does is context-based — what are the practices in the company, how do to the teams work, what is the culture of the organisation…?
For each section, I’m using a star (for things I liked) and a wish (well, for things I wished were included)
What is a Technical Program Manager
Star: This is my favourite part of the book. I like the look into the history and the comparison across companies and job roles.
Fundamental of Program Management
Star: I would say this covers all areas of Program Management (the “PM” part) that at TPM needs to do and think about, along with some good advice and tools to use. If you followed this part, you would ensure you were covering all the key elements of a well-run program.
Wish: The reality of programs is that they are a messy melting pot of people, processes, external pressures, market conditions, etc. This means that often things don’t pan out exactly how you plan them at the start. I’d probably cover more on “when things don’t go to plan”.
I also wish there was more about estimation. It’s briefly covered, but in technical programs, estimation is often a controversial topic. At a minimum, exploring and discussing things like the “cone of uncertainty” or talking about the impact of technical tradeoffs when working towards a fixed time.
Technical Toolset
Wish: Software — its engineering, architecture and delivery is a huge topic. Whilst the focus was on code development, system design and architecture, I wish the author had added in other things to explore. One way to do this might have been to follow a piece of code through to writing to production (so you can touch topics such as code integration, compilation, observability, deployment architectures, release strategies, etc.)
I would recommend this book to the following people:
Tech folk interested in moving into a TPM role
Grads entering a tech consultancy. Even if not working day to day in program management, there are elements you end up either being exposed to or supporting leaders with.
I’d not recommend this to more experienced delivery managers or TPMs — for those folk, I’d say “Think about an area that you would like to improve on and delve into detail on that topic”