Reflecting on 2022 + Looking to 2023

2022 was a busy and rewarding year. I wrote a book on Technical Program Management, week by week. For 2023, I have a few things cooking. Read on to learn more.

Jan 05, 2023

I started writing Building Romes to fill in a gap I saw in online content available on Technical Program Management. Everywhere and everyone was talking about Product Management.

If there existed content around Technical Program Managers, it focused on how to get a job at FAANG as a TPM or more focused on “do scrum”, “be agile”, “boo waterfall”, “why aren’t you doing daily stand ups”. There wasn’t anything focused on what the ground reality was for TPMs, how are TPMs leveraged and how do you get great at it.

My goal was to go Beyond Agile and provide an insiders point of view of how Bigtech like Apple and Google actually do Technical Program Management and in the process address the broader question of what exactly is Technical Program Management.

So, for 2022, I set out on a mission.

Week by week, I wrote 52 essays.

I strategically chose topics to write about that would constitute the components of a series of books called the Technical Program Manager’s Field Manual.

This first volume is called Foundations.

Based on my 12+ years of work experience as both an individual contributor and people leader TPM at companies like Apple, Google, Blackberry, Nike and now a startup called Humane, everything you want to know about the TPM role and what it takes to be great at it, beyond agile (BA), it’s all here. In addition, I share behind the scenes, insider first-hand account, into how companies like Apple plan and ship software.

The response to the content was beyond my imagination. I started the year with 200 subscribers and as of this post, I have 2,400 subscribers who read my pieces every week.

I have taken all 52 essays + some additional posts and organized them into sections and links which you can browse and read in any order you prefer.

All the articles I wrote in 2022 organized by sections.

The content is not organized in any specific order and you can choose to read one essay or all or keep it for reference if you need to come back to it.

Read Volume 1

All the content was written for a wide range of audiences.:

People curious about the TPM role
Companies looking to introduce the TPM role in their engineering organizations.
People or companies interested in learning how TPMs are used across tech companies.
Experienced TPMs looking to take their game to the next level.
People looking to break into the TPM role.
Engineering Leaders, Managers, ICs, Product Managers, Product Leaders.
Everyone.

Again the goal is demystify the role of TPMs in engineering organizations, big and small.

If you know some who would love to read this content, share it with them and ask them to subscribe to the newsletter.

The Newsletter (Continuing ✌🏽)

Although the week by week cadence for writing a newsletter is, for me at least, extremely taxing, it has been very rewarding nonetheless. I will continue to focus on weekly writing but with a different content structure and approach.

Stay tuned as the writing will resume after a short break in January 2023.

Talent and Job Board (Coming Soon 🥳)

It's a curated job board and talent pool, by yours truly, of the best world-class Technical Program and Product Management roles across the globe (in-office, hybrid, remote).

Plus, I am going to curate talented people for companies looking to hire their next great TPM. There are two profiles that I really want to help with this experiment:

A great experienced TPM (2+ years of experience) looking for their next big adventure
People with the natural instincts to make a great TPM but that don’t have the title nor have they found their opportunity to shine yet or been given the chance.

Stay tuned for more information. Let me know if this is something that interests you.

If your company would be interested in posting jobs on the board, please reply to this post and let me know.
If you are interested in joining the talent collective and find your next TPM adventure, please reply to this post and let me know.

Premium Subscription (Launching Today 🎉)

A great number of you have reached out to me over the years to ask about doing more to contribute to my efforts. Many have found the content beyond helpful and supremely insightful to both the TPM role as well as the insider look into how companies like Apple work.

I was surprised and blown away by this. So, starting today, you can become a Building Romes Insider, a paid monthly premium subscription.

Some of the ideas I am exploring for premium subscribers:

Early access to new experiments and projects.
Access to the Insider Look articles.
Special Premium only posts.
Much much more… this is all one giant happy experiment.

For all the wonderful readers who have been here supporting my writing and continue to be subscribers, thank you. Keep engaging, keep reading and keep giving me your feedback.

That’s it for now. Building Romes will resume shortly. Happy 2023 to you all.

Until next time 👋!

-Aadil

New Updates to the TPM Library