How To Be "Strategic" As A TPM
2025.11 - How do you become ‘strategic’ when you’re in a role that is often focused on execution rather than decision-making? Learn why ‘Keeping the Trains Running’ alone is not helping your career.
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I strongly believe that we need way more voices from the TPM community out there. Different backgrounds, different stories, different paths.
Why? Because the more we share, the more we all learn and grow. That’s how we become better, sharper, more badass TPMs.
So today, I’m pumped to share a guest post from one of my absolute favorite leaders in Product and Program Management.
Shannon Vettes is the CEO and CPO of Usersnap, a seasoned product leader working in tech for over 15 years in several roles including program management. Known for her strategic vision and team empowerment, she’s launched standout products, mentors rising PMs, and actively builds community through meetups and viral LinkedIn content. Shannon has been a guest speaker in my TPM course, someone I go to for advice and guidance when I feel stuck, and someone I admire immensely not just for her stellar career track but she’s one extraordinary thinker in both product and program management - a rare star if ever one.
If you’ve ever been told “you need to be more strategic” and then left wondering what that actually means… you’re not alone.
It’s one of those vague bits of feedback that sounds important but rarely comes with a clear roadmap.
Well, Shannon’s here to break it down — and in 10 minutes, she’ll help you not only understand what “being strategic” really looks like, but how to start making moves in that direction right away.
Enough from me, passing it over to Shannon now!
3 Steps to be a more “strategic” TPM: Why “Keeping the Trains Running” is killing your career
Most TPMs I’ve known – including when I was in the role – struggle to be strategic.
You don’t make all the decisions, and some orgs relegate TPMs to a position of glorified gopher—which, IMHO, is a waste of talent. Just keeping things rolling is not where your biggest impact is, and can actually lead to you being seen as “just a BS manager”.
So how do you become “strategic” when you’re in a role that is often focused on execution rather than decision-making? (Content Warning: at some point in this article, I’ll talk about influence without authority — but I’ll make it painless because I know you’ve heard it a lot.)
The key question is: How do you move beyond management and into leadership?
That’s what we’re going to talk about today with these three steps to being more “strategic” in your role—and the signals that show you’re doing it well. But first, let’s talk about how strategy applies in this field.
Strategic TPMs anticipate more than they execute
To be “strategic”, it’s important to maintain the ability to drive results while adding a key skill: being a great predictor. Not of just anything, of these 3 key areas:
Needs
Having a good idea of the capabilities of the team/tech makes you a strong partner for complex projects.
Complexity can be costly when it goes wrong, and being good at cost-savings is always appreciated.
Risks
Knowing where the land mines are and which ones will blow up something important makes your advice invaluable.
Long-term impacts
Quarterly goals do not have nearly the impact as north star or Vision-Focused Objectives (VFOs) type of metrics.
Focus on long-term high-impact goals to be seen as someone who doesn’t focus only on ‘right now’.
Strategic TPMs are able to influence because they’ve honed these prediction skills and can reason with clear examples and data.
If you’re not yet experienced with both success and failure, it’ll be hard to have reference points to draw from — so be patient and keep learning.
Take notes on these strategies as they apply to your current projects — you’ll need them later.
Step 1: Know your business priorities
To be strategic, you must understand the company vision and align technical initiatives with key business outcomes. Now, here’s the part where I might call you out with three questions:
Can you list the three cannot-miss initiatives your business is pushing forward?
How many of your project outcomes focus on those initiatives?
Do you know the metrics they use to measure success?
If you can’t answer these questions, here’s a gentle kick in the pants: go find out. If you don’t know, you can’t align your work to those goals, can you?
Regularly engage with product and business leaders over lunch or coffee to understand how technical initiatives fit into the bigger picture. Take good notes. Surprise: Business leaders don’t always agree on what matters. You’ll need to keep track.
Aadil here for a quick minute…
I cannot stress how important Step 1 is. Often times when we are so execution focused on the programs we are assigned to especially at BigTechCompany, we tend not to pay attention to the bigger picture for various reasons.
Sometimes people might confuse knowing everything with “stepping into other people’s lane” which I think is an anti-pattern or wrong way to think. Knowing what is happening everywhere is not the same thing as poking your nose or getting involved everywhere.
Some of the best TPMs I worked with always knew what was happening beyond their sphere of operation and programs they led. This meant they were a valuable resource to help out where needed and something senior leadership not only valued but saw and praised especially during promo season ;).
Okay, back to Shannon…
Step 2: Map your work to the goals. Map the stakeholders & their level of trust in your expertise.
Next, you’ll apply that learning to your work by making a mind-map or brainstorm about the relationship between the impacts, risks and dependencies of your program for each of the top 3 things your leaders are focused on.
Impacts: Map your programs to impacts.
Know which ones matter most.
Know the numbers – not just surface-level detail or when questioned you won’t have the answer and it discredits you mentioning the goal.
Risks: Pick the highest probable and most impactful risks first.
Again, here it’s good to back-of-the-napkin know how much or how little the issues impact the major initiatives.
Also, factor in scalability as a long-term risk. Know the best mitigation strategy for each.
Dependencies: Large and complex projects often have this component to watch.
Not knowing the moving parts of your program makes you look sloppy.
Not knowing how one derailing can impact major goals, makes you look irresponsible.
Note dependencies that directly tank something important, and include them in the risk management.
You’re not done yet. I know that was a lot of work! But, we didn’t tackle the politics yet.
Influence is 80% relationship-building and communication, and only 20% technical execution. I’m sorry. I know that was hard to read, but I prefer not to lie to you.
You need to map the key stakeholders in your organization so you’re giving people information who have the ability to delegate the authority you need to be a “strategic” part of the team.
The best practice is a Mendelow Matrix to look at their Power vs Interest in the impacts you mapped:
I also recommend you consider who’s on “your side”. Who already trusts you. Make those names green. Consider who doesn’t. Make those names red. Consider what the top 3 red names need to trust you - give it to them as early and often as you can.
People rarely change their opinions of you overnight. But, consistently proving your value to skeptics will shift their perception.
Step 3: Wait for your time to shine, but prepare for it in advance.
Here’s that influence without authority part. You won’t always be directly asked for your opinion, and you won’t always have an interesting one. Stay patient and wait for the moment when all your preparation bears fruit. This is your opening to be influential. You need them to see that your work is an investment in their future success.
Here’s a few things to be prepared to bring up on a moment’s notice:
Highlight critical needs before everything is set in stone
Since you’re aware of the impacts, risks and dependencies that matter, you can anticipate some of what is needed to avoid key risks, smooth rough dependencies, and ensure the impacts are achieved with suggestions for staffing, technology, and plans that harmonize work across the dependencies and teams.
Work closely with teams to find all these answers.
Dependency mapping sessions and “how might this fail” – I call them “grenade meetings” – are fun cross-team ways to find needs/risks you don’t see alone.
When you’ve got it, organize a debriefing session with key stakeholders to outline impacts, risks, dependencies, and the plans around them.
Use them to fill gaps in your visibility, focus on the long-term and big business impacts they care about.
Have your Plan B ready
When the risks are activated, you should know how you will communicate to the team, and to key stakeholders.
Nothing undermines leadership credibility more than being unprepared for a critical moment in a meeting.
You should share the risk’s impact/probability, and how you’ll deal with it in a concise (1-2 sentences max) summary that gets straight to the point with no detours.
Here’s mine:“We are yellow because {reason risk is activated due to trigger}, and {negative impact anticipated with a key number that impacts business outcome} needs to be managed before we go red. To get to green we will {action} by {date} with {teams} and it’s been planned.
Give meaningful, but short updates on big long-term impacts
You don’t need to give a lot of detail on these, but it shows you are aware and you care. Ex:“We are green on {program name} and on track to deliver {critical business outcome} by {date} with {teams}. {People’s names} were critical this quarter to help us stay on track by {risk mitigated, learning gained, or key work delivered}.
Send this out to teams and stakeholders.
Recognize teams and individuals that led to success.
Highlight learning from mistakes – not hiding them.
💡Communication tips: Speaking clearly, concisely, and in a “you’ve got this” manner. Your preparation will win you the trust you crave. Trust is the front door to leading, and this method wins it with stakeholders and your peers.
Signals to watch for
Here’s how you’ll know you’re becoming a “strategic” TPM:
✅ Your advice influences roadmap and delivery plans, people want to consult with you.
✅ Your cross-functional alignment prevents critically bad impacts, and you talk about it.
✅ You can back up your reasons with hard data and examples consistently.
✅ You speak up about the impacts tied to business outcomes your stakeholders care about, and they acknowledge it.
✅ You learn from mistakes in ways that prevent them in the future.
✅ You recognize the talent doing the work with you.
✅ Your guesses tend to “come true” consistently.
Here’s what a non-strategic TPM looks like:
❌ You’re purely reactive. You are aware of only a few risks, and let the rest come up as you go. Plans aren’t made to mitigate leading to fire drills. You ignore long-term stuff.
❌ You’re an update giver, instead of a value transmitter. You give updates that don’t matter to the stakeholders or you give too many details.
❌ You only talk about what happened. You ignore business impacts and long-term objectives in favor of short-term project launches.
❌ You can’t get consensus because you can’t make an evidence-led proposal.
Final Word
Being a “strategic” TPM is not about abandoning execution or a** kissing. It’s about knowing your business, knowing your programs, and knowing how to speak to stakeholders in away they care about.
You need to expand your impact beyond just your program’s success in order to be invited to more strategic discussions.
Now here’s the last piece of advice: be patient.
Building this reputation will take time – but it’s worth it.
Thanks, Aadil, for lending me your readers. I hope they like this post and learn from you as much as I do!
Over to you…
-Shannon
Aadil here…
Thank you so much, Shannon. I am sure my readers are walking away with things they can start doing tomorrow.
One thing I want to point out that you might have noticed - I kept putting strategic in double quotations. Why? When someone tells you to be more “strategic” they mean it as both adjective and verb. It describes a kind of TPM as well as an action a TPM must constantly take. This is the secret no one tells you and why it’s so hard to often meet this bar.
I hope to be able to do more of these guest posts in the future for you, my readers.
Until next time!
-Aadil
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Thanks Adil and Shannon for covering this great topic. I love the breakdown provided to understand it. One thing I like to add is no one will ask you as TPM to be strategic. You’ve to step-up, carve yourself out and balance your time between being tactical vs strategic.