Last updated on December 29th, 2023 at 11:24 am
One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, “Can you describe a Day in the life of a TPM?”. This question is quite difficult because numerous factors are at play, and the answers may vary accordingly.
I will attempt to answer this question in two sections. The first section will focus on the various factors that might impact a TPM’s role. I am guessing this would be quite interesting for new TPMs who are exploring the type of organization they would like to work with. The second section will focus on my attempt to compile a cumulative list of the things a TPM would do in a day or even in a week.
What Impacts The Daily Life Of A TPM
- A Seat At The Table
One of the crucial aspects of a TPM’s life is the organization’s culture and how the role of the TPM is viewed. Is the TPM given a seat at the table when decisions are made? Are their opinions heard? Is the TPM’s manager supportive by helping them fight battles beyond their capacity?
- Size of the Organization
The larger the organization, the more time it takes to resolve blockers due to the larger number of cross-functional teams you are dependent on. Smaller organizations may be less prone to complex processes and are likely more agile. As a TPM, your differences in responsibilities may look different in a small organization as opposed to a larger organization.
- Current Place of the Product in the Product Life Cycle
Think of Kindle vs. Alexa. Kindle was first released in 2007. 13 years later, it has possibly reached the pinnacle of its innovative evolution. However, Alexa was launched recently in 2014, and it still has a lot of scope in its evolution cycle. As a TPM, you will be part of an organization that will either be doing a lot of feature work or more operations-centric work, depending on your product’s positioning on its lifecycle.
- Depth TPM vs. Breath TPM
I have discussed this in detail here. But in short, depth TPMs support a few feature /product teams, whereas breadth TPMs can own and drive large programs.
- Startup vs. Established Organization
Startup TPMs wear multiple hats and are responsible for a lot of things. In an established organization, your focus as a TPM is generally smaller in scope but with higher impact, and you might be expected to be technically deep.
- B2B Product vs. B2C Product
In B2B organizations/products, you generally build and release features in cycles. You have big events where multiple product teams demonstrate specific key features their enterprise users would be interested in. You would also prioritize features that might capture the attention of certain high-profile customers. While in B2C, the focus is on what your end customer wants. You will be required to do more customer testing, run more a/b tests, keep a close eye on the competition, etc. Because of all the tasks mentioned above, TPMs are generally flexible in prioritizing and operations.
- Customer Facing TPMs vs. Internal (In-Bound) TPMs
In enterprise organizations (AWS, GCP, OCI, Splunk, Salesforce), TPMs are responsible for interacting with external customers. Their responsibilities would include onboarding a customer onto their platform, owning the relationship with one or more high-profile strategic customers, or helping customers with certain types of operational problems. This role can be defined as a TAM (Technical Account Manager) or a TPM. Either way, the nature of your work would significantly vary.
Of course, the above are generalizations and have broad strokes in their differences. Before joining a team, it’s always good to ask your hiring manager what the makeup and the nature of your role will be. You might also see the organization evolve as you continue to work in a team for many years.
As a TPM, most of what the organization asks of you will differ based on your environment. I am sure there is more that you can add to the above list of things that impact the role, and shape the daily duties/responsibilities of a TPM.
Now, moving on to the second section, we will look at the actual tasks a TPM might undertake in his/her day. I have categorized this into 4 major categories, and each category will contain a list of tasks a TPM would possibly need to perform in his/her day.
The list below is by no means comprehensive. It’s meant to give you a taste of what a typical day/week in the life of a TPM would look like.
A Typical Day In The Life of a TPM
Meetings
- Check in with the Go-to-market Team on Collaterals for the Product Launch
- Present bad news to team X, i.e., your team, that you will not be able to work on that Feature ‘ABC’
- Check-in with Social Media Rep to monitor Product Blowback (since we turned off a feature)
- Host & Capture Action Items for a Senior Leadership Meeting with Finance to review Business Numbers, i.e., Spending & Revenue
- Present at Leadership Meeting > representing the four programs you own.
- 1-1’s with fellow TPMs/Colleagues/Mentors/Mentees
Writing/Reviewing Docs
- Read, design, document & prep for Design Review
- Design the Operational Metrics Dashboard on the cadence of the meetings for the five teams
- Prepare for the upcoming QBR
- Writing or contributing to various documents on the following key topics:
- Team Formation (Mission, Vision & Goals for the Year) ◦
- Design
- API
- OP1 & OP2
- PR FAQs
- Analysis of Specific Problems
- Budgeting & Forecasting
- Headcount Planning
- Root Cause Analysis
- Change Control Board
- Operational Reviews
- Request for New Infrastructure, etc
Program Management
- Help team (A) with a milestone plan, so that the team can get back to the leadership with the Feature launch date
- Dependency Management – Meet with 3 teams that your team is dependent on
- Drop-in for the team retrospective
- Kick-off new initiative with the leadership, development team, and PMs
- Re-Prioritization Meeting (Either for one of your teams or for the larger organization)
- Trade-Off management, clean escalations,
- and pushing for decisions on this
Miscellaneous
- The day generally starts by looking at my meetings and re-prioritizing them if necessary.
- At least once a week, you will get something that is a high priority and needs your immediate attention
- Review personal task list for the Day & Week ahead.
- Urgent & Important Tasks (Do immediately)
- Important but Not Urgent Tasks (Schedule for later)
- Urgent but Not Important Tasks (Delegate)
- Neither Urgent nor Important (Do last or not at all)
- Send out a “Health Check Survey” to the Organization
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There you go !
Very Insightful! Thanks Mario
Thanks for sharing out this value piece of insight briefly taking us through the day to day of a TPM. Thanks Mario!
Cool stuff for TPMs. Really liked it . Thanks Mario
I was looking for something like this.I always get thus question and it’s not easy to explain but I’m glad that this encapsulates the link to the breadth vs depth vs SWAT pm link as well so it provides more context. Thanks for always being an amazing mentor ,silently, from far away, Mario.
Thanks for putting this together Mario !