what does a TPM do?
we have EMs, QEMs, senior EMs, senior QEM, a director of engineering, several PMs for 1 project and we have a TPM.. who seems to send out some email once in a while about some jira stuff. what does a TPM do exactly?
They’re like a PM but more T
T as in technical?
Seriously? They orchestrate product delivery end to end, making sure your teams have their shit together.
It sounds like a program (multiple projects/ work streams) than a project. Lots of coordination and orchestration, oh yes and some creation.
They ask for dates
In my past experience they usually are more tightly integrated with dev teams than product owners/managers. They’ll determine which teams need to be tapped to deliver whatever new feature product wants, wheel and deal with dev managers to get time allocated, then help the dev teams track progress and hit deadlines through TFS, SIM, Jira, or the likes. They’re in a stressful position because they usually don’t have any direct influence (no direct reports, can’t write the code themselves, no control over requirements) and they get pressure from product to make sure things get delivered on time. They also have to crack the whip (so to speak) which roughly amounts to constantly pestering the engineers on whether that story which has been carried over from the past 3 sprints is really still in-progress and on track. If they’re not careful this pestering can lead to a sort of adversarial relationship forming between them and the teams they need to deliver work for product. Edit: The best TPMs have some engineering background (maybe some systems design knowledge) just because bigger deliverables usually span multiple systems and teams, and the TPM will need some familiarity to determine which teams need what work on their roadmap. They should also be able to roughly break down work into medium sized stories so that the dev team can more easily further decompose the stories into something that can be delivered in a sprint. Persuasion is another important skill for TPMs because usually every teams roadmap is fully booked when a new product feature is requested. TPMs have to be able to both persuade dev managers to prioritize their work over other commits and need to persuade the engineers to actually complete the work on time.
Thanks for the explanation!
Technically, program management. ;)
As in look after multiple projects at a time?
I thought you were joking so I made a joke, OP. You should ask your TPM what they do.