Driving toward clarity

Throughout the book, I’ve talked about driving clarity in various stages of a project and have also discussed the technical tools that TPMs use. Now, let’s see how these two concepts help each other. A TPM is an extension of a program manager and, as such, it shares the trait of driving toward clarity. However, our technical toolset allows us to use specialized tools to tackle technical problems that would leave a non-technical PM struggling to process them.

We speak the same language—quite literally—as the people who are delivering the technical aspects of the project and can bridge the gap between technical jargon and the business domain. To connect the TPM toolset with the need to drive toward clarity, I’ll go through each key management area and explore the connections: plan management, risk management, stakeholder management, and communications.

Plan management

During the planning stage, all three technical...