how to be a technical program manager
aimconsulting.comImage: aimconsulting.comSteps to Become a Technical Program ManagerEarn a Degree …Choose a Specialty in Your Field …Get an Entry-Level Position as a Technical Program Manager …Advance in Your Technical Program Manager Career …Continued Education for Your Technical Program Manager Career Path …
What are the best skills for a program manager?
Milestone planningProcess mappingPlanning and facilitating meetingsChange managementStatistical quality controlRoot cause analysisScenario analysisBrainstormingScheduling toolsLessons learned (PMI,2008)
How to become a Technical Program Manager (TPM)?
Volunteer to be a TPM for a small project within your company to understand the various aspects that entail in successfully completing a project end to end.Highly recommend pursuing any of the Program Management related certifications. …Learn about Agile methodologies.Shadow other TPMs and learn from them.Find a mentor.
What does a program manager actually do?
Working as a Program ManagerIdentifying the needs of the organization,then creating and managing long-term goalsCreating programs following the mission of the organization to ensure its successDeveloping a budget,writing funding proposals and allocating company resourcesManaging a team and meeting with stakeholders to communicate on goals and issuesMore items…
What are the job responsibilities of a program manager?
Responsibilities – Program ManagerThey organize programs that represent the vision and mission of the organization.They also develop new programs to give a new strategic direction to the organization.Their goals are long-term in nature.Program managers also create an operational plan for the organization.They also plan a decent budget for the organization.More items…
How Do You Become a Tech Project Manager?
Regardless of your professional path or current role, experience in other jobs will help you on your quest to become a technical project manager. In fact, many technical project managers have previous career experience in operations management, business analytics and software engineering. Here are a few steps that will help you in your journey toward gaining technical project management experience.
What Tools and Software Do Tech Project Managers Need to Master?
Asana is a project management platform to help you plan, organize and manage your team’s work from start to finish, and also acts as a collaboration tool. Coordinate team tasks, share feedback, files and status updates to keep everyone aligned. Plus, Asana gives you a complete view of work so teams tackle the right tasks at the right time.
What is Agile methodology?
Agile methodology promote s continuous iteration of both testing and development throughout the project life cycle, letting you develop products via short cycles of work that allow for rapid production and constant iterations.
What is JIRA project management?
JIRA is a web-based project management tool that gives project managers the ability to manage multiple teams, projects and workflows more efficiently. It works well for sizable teams and organizations, where employees and managers work on individual components of a large-scale project, and may sometimes overlook certain necessary tasks.
What is Trello system?
It is a great tool for standard projects and is convenient for both command directives and individual assignments.
What is leadership focusing on?
Leadership focuses less on tasks and more on people. Here, you’ll need to be aware and mindful, generate a sense of urgency when needed, know how to motivate teams individually, build cohesion and facilitate collaboration. This takes strong communication to give team members all the needed information and resources to do their parts for the larger goal at hand.
What is a tech PM boot camp?
Learning through a tech PM boot camp program or online course can provide you with a strong foundation to pivot your career and lead technical projects. Through these hands-on programs, you will be able to develop in-demand leadership and business management skills that are an integral part of technical project management.
Education levels for Technical Program Managers
Based on the requirements of Technical Program Manager job openings on Indeed in the United States within the last three years.
What is the job outlook for technical program managers?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t maintain data specific to technical program managers, but computer and information systems managers have similar technical goals and management responsibilities.
How can technical program managers advance in their careers?
Once you gain enough experience as a technical program manager, you can progress to higher-level roles such as senior technical program manager or director of technical program management. Professionals with extensive experience can even earn general manager positions. To advance to one of these roles, it may benefit you to pursue certification.
What is a technical manager?
The role of a technical manager is a hybrid role that focuses on leading a team and working hands-on with projects involving technology. The technical manager oversees a company’s computer and information systems to keep everything running and may make improvements to systems as needed.
Why is customer service important in a technical manager?
Customer service: Customer service is an important skill for technical managers because they may work with customer-facing software and they should be able to explain computer systems to people. Project management: The ability to plan and execute successful projects can be an essential part of a technical manager’s job.
What are the skills needed for a technical manager?
Skills for technical managers. Skills that may be important for technical managers to have for their job include: Creativity: Since the role of technical manager comes with little guidance or existing protocols, technical managers need to use their creativity to shape the position.
Why do companies hire technical managers?
Having a technical manager on staff can make it easier to prevent technical issues and resolve those issues quickly, and there is a wide range of industries that employ technical managers.
Why do technical managers need to manage their time?
Time management: As with any management career, technical managers need to manage their time well to keep projects on track and meet their deadlines.
How to become a technical manager?
There are no specific educational requirements for a technical manager, but most technical managers have at least a bachelor’s degree in a computer- or technology-related field.
What to do when applying for a job posting at another company?
If you are applying for a job posting at another company, you can do your research on the company’s values and structure before going into your interview. It’s helpful to first determine in what areas the company may need improvement and create a plan for how you would help as a technical manager.
What is a TPM role?
The TPM role usually comes about when a company starts needing structure and discipline within its IT ranks and responsibilities. As such, they’re rare to find in small- to mid-size companies and, as such, salaries reflect the demands—and location—of the job.
What is a TPM in IT?
The job of a technical program manager (TPM) is one of the expanding roles in companies today as businesses become more digital. Generally speaking, TPMs help drive company strategy, align teams, collaborate with cross-functional stakeholders, and deliver on multiple complex projects. It all requires a tricky balance of credentials.
What is soft skills?
Soft-skills work: Act as a communications liaison between technical and non-technical colleagues. Develop and maintain productive internal relationships. Facilitate cross-collaboration and understanding between IT and other departments. Generate targeted reports for different internal and/or external audiences.
Do I need an MBA to become a TPM?
Despite the need for a broad understanding of business, it’s not likely that every organization would require a TPM candidate to have an MBA. Still, an MBA or a Master of Science in information technology is often preferred, as is PgMP® or PMI-ACP certification by the Project Management Institute.
Who is Dharma Mehta?
Dharma Mehta, director of Program Management at Roku, has more than 10 years of professional experience at prestigious companies including Amazon, PayPal, and Accenture, solving complex processes and technology problems with simplified solutions. His expertise includes technology portfolio/program/project management, driving software product development, advertising technology, and platform business, strategic planning, building high-performance teams, and transforming software experience for developers and end customers. He is particularly effective at optimizing the performance of people, processes, and technology to deliver improved business outcomes. For more information, email [email protected] or connect on LinkedIn.
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Articulating a Vision
As the TPM is a leader, but not a manager, they need to be able to excite people about joining their project (even if they were assigned to be on it) by articulating a clear vision and purpose. Communicating the WHY for a project is crucial here as that will help align the team’s purpose along a common goal.
Breaking up a Large Project into smaller
Once the team is aboard and the scope of the work has been defined it is important to break up a project into tasks that are appropriate for the team that has been assembled.
Defining DONE
It is so important to develop and define a shared, clear understanding of completion among the team before work starts so that everyone sees clearly that the end is visible and attainable. This DONE criteria will likely change during a project – that’s fine – as long as the team understands that and can recalibrate their expectations.
Storytelling
Quite often when I start a project, I envision the story that I will tell at the end to explain in human terms what we accomplished or how what we did impacted people’s lives. I use this story to articulate my vision in a way that people can empathize with.
Trying it All Out – with a Hackathon
So an engineer sees these skills and wants to try out being a TMP before they start applying for the role. This is exactly the strategy that Bill Burnett talks about with running experiments in his Designing Your Life TED Talk and book. My recommendation is to join a hackathon.
What Should I do Now to Prepare?
A reader just asked me what they should do now if they see a TPM role in their future. Here’s what I suggests:
A comprehensive guide on how to start your career as a technical program manager at top technology firms. We discuss several aspects such as the responsibilities of the role, and important skills that one needs to acquire to succeed
A Technical Program Manager’s (TPM) role is one of the most diversifying jobs today as businesses continue to adapt to digital standards. It is also one of the more challenging roles out there since it requires a deft balance between necessary technical expertise, team management, communication skills, and business acumen.
Role of a Technical Program Manager
To put it simply, a technical program manager is responsible for managing every aspect of an organization’s technical projects.
Various roles and responsibilities of a Technical Program Manager
A Technical Program Manager facilitates communication between the technical and non-technical teams of an organization.
Necessary Skills for becoming a Technical Program Manager
A Technical Program Manager must possess skills that allow him to efficiently handle both the technical and non-technical aspects of a program.
Career Transition into Technical Program Management
A Technical Program Manager’s position comes with an interesting but challenging career path. You can graduate to several levels once you have acquired relevant exposure in your current role and increased your knowledge base.
Salary of a Technical Program Manager
The annual salary of a TPM is dependent on the individual level of the job, the type of company – small to mid-sized to large-scale, and the location you are hired in.
Marketing Yourself as a Project Manager
The position also comes with a variety of benefits that include insurance plans, paid holidays, medical, retirement coverage, among other packages. The position is also linked with incentives for TPMs who succeed in fulfilling business objectives and exceed organization goals under the proposed budget.
Earn a degree
To begin your Technical Program Manager career path, a Bachelor’s Degree in computer science or a related field is usually necessary in order to remain a competitive option for employers.
Choose speciality
As an Technical Program Manager, you may be required to choose a specialty within your field. Determine which part of the Technical Program Manager field you feel strongest in, and continue taking active steps toward growing in your chosen Technical Program Manager specialty.
Get an entry level
Once you’ve acquired a Bachelor’s Degree in computer science or a related field, you’ll typically begin your career as an entry-level Technical Program Manager. In general, you can become a Technical Program Manager after completing your 4 year Bachelor’s Degree in a related discipline.
Advance in career
Following entry-level, there are several Technical Program Manager career path levels to advance into. It can take 2 years as an entry-level Technical Program Manager to progress to the senior technical program manager position.
Continued education opportunities
Not all industries and companies require continued education to advance your Technical Program Manager career path. However, earning this degree may help you advance to higher-earning positions more quickly. Earning a Graduate Degree in computer science can take 4 years to complete.