What is the gap between a Microsoft Program Manager's skill set and Product Managers or TPMs in other companies?
Trying to figure out what these roles do and am not finding a definitive answers in resources i found online.
The biggest "gap" for TPM at LinkedIn is realizing that they have little to no control on the roadmap & features that go into specific sprints. The engineers, with inputs from product manager collectively figure out the priority & pick up tasks in sprint accordingly. The role of TPM here is to facilitate sprint plannings, cross functional collaboration, raising awareness of risks, escalating to get traction, etc. These are not simple things, just different from how Microsoft PMs operate.
LinkedIn TPM's call themselves "Technical Program Managers" but they are glorified project managers. They are in no way program managers.
I'm not sure which TPMs you've worked with. While they can't code or speak design language, most of the TPMs I've worked with at LinkedIn are technical "enough" to be competent at their jobs & add value.
Thanks guys! So, Product managers define requirements and TPMs help the team execute? Seems like Microsoft PMs do a little of both depending on the role. Are Product Managers in other companies responsible for Profit and Loss??
Program managers as defined by Microsoft and Program managers at other companies are very very different to the point you think they're trying to confuse people. Program managers are Microsoft are like the "mini CEO"
Depends on the program manager. Product managers own the product so they need tech, business, and marketing skills. Big gap for bug Dbase managers, less for others.