Mario Gerard: Hello, and welcome to the TPM podcast with your post Mario Gerard. This is going be a podcast with Rhea. Rhea and I worked together at OCI running large scale programs. We’ve split this into a three-part series, and we’re primarily focusing on how we run large scale programs at tech organizations. So, stay tuned and listen in and definitely check out all the three parts to the series.

And so, this is Rhea’s co expertise, and this is what I’ve been doing as well for the last four years at the Oracle cloud infrastructure team. It’s definitely a very unique type of a role, unique type of people who get involved in running large scale programs. And generally, there aren’t many large-scale programs which are run within organizations, right?

So, I’m going to ask Rhea some questions and I’ll probably add to that as well. So, the first primary question for our listeners Rhea, what is a large-scale program? How do you define a large-scale program?

Rhea Frondozo: So typically, I’d say that a large-scale program is a program that spans multiple organizations. So, you’re looking at a program that maybe ranges from hundreds to thousands of developers or engineers, all working towards a very complex goal.

Mario Gerard: Yeah. I just feel that that needs to kind of sink in, right? So, the programs they’ve run, like we’ve had to move like 200 teams, which takes two years. If you calculate the manpower that’s required to do some of these initiatives. There are literally thousands or tens of thousands of manners of work. And so that’s like so complex. Do you think about it?

Rhea Frondozo: Yeah, I would say when you frame it that way, and you think about the complexity that comes with a large program, it may be the case that as a TPM, you’re interacting with a core set of stakeholders. Maybe it’s like 20 to 30 core stakeholders, but the multiplier under that for how many people that they are working with, how much direction that they are giving to an entire organization, it can be pretty mind blowing to know that you’re trying to move a ship that has so many people all trying to row in the same direction. It’s pretty incredible. Once you see the amount of effort that that takes.

Mario Gerard: And this is I think, where we also differentiate depth TPMS versus breadth TPMS, you want to speak of little bit about that?

Rhea Frondozo: Yeah. So, you know, as you mentioned, these large-scale programs are often run by a breadth TPM because these are going to be the TPMS who work across multiple organizations. They’re going to have maybe pocs that point of context that they interact with across maybe functional different organizations and teams.

Whereas a depth TPM, they’re going to go deep in a particular organization or team scope of ownership. And so, they’re going to maybe work more directly with the engineers on a single team and understand their problem space much more closely. Whereas the breadth TPM is going to rely on functional area owners to be the subject matter experts in that space. But they’re the ones pulling these different functions together to solve a much larger, bigger picture problem.

Mario Gerard: Yeah. And if you want to read more about the depth versus breadth TPMS, I’ve written a good blog post about it with my experience working at OCI. So, you should definitely go check that out. So, coming back to the skills required as a TPM, what do you think are the main skills that a TPM needs to have to run this kind of large-scale initiatives? Because I feel like the breadth TPMS definitely have a different type of problem that they’re dealing with than a depth TPM, right?

Rhea Frondozo: Yes. So, I would say first and foremost, when you’re dealing with these large skill programs, a breath TPM absolutely must have excellent communication skills. They must be crisp. They must be clear. They must be concise. If you think about the levels of communication that are required for a breath TPM. A lot of times you’re dealing with very complex programs that are being watched by the highest levels of executive leadership within an organization. So, you have to be able to communicate very crisply and concise to them.

You also are going to be working across a lot of different problem spaces and having to work across many other leaders or engineers and being able to get to the point quickly of what you need to solve by when and how is also really important. And so, communication is definitely key to your success and running a large program.

So next I would say is a long in the lines of communicating, but your ability to define a clear objective and scope a large program is going to be very, very complex. And if you don’t have the right objective laid out for all of these people to follow, it’s going to be very difficult to make sure that everybody’s running in the right direction. And so being able to define a clear objective and scope ends up, you know, being like we said before, a good measurement of whether or not you’re solving the right problem.

Mario Gerard: And I think to add to that, right, I think why that’s super important is every stakeholder who comes to your table, who’s part of your large-scale program has a different function at times. You might have security, you might have operations, you might have 10 different teams providing 10 different pillars of software. So, everybody has a different output they’re going to generate, right?

And your problem definition, and your objective needs to be super clear because everybody’s going to interpret it kind of differently from the functional perspective. And that’s why you’re going to keep re recreating and retelling your story. You are retelling your objective multiple different times, but the people are consuming it at translating into what they each need to do.

Rhea Frondozo: Right, right. Great point.

Mario Gerard: So, what are the other skills you think are kind of important?

Rhea Frondozo: So, you know, I think another one that we had touched on earlier is just your ability to problem solve in an ambiguous or unfamiliar situation. When you have a large-scale program, a lot of times you don’t know what’s coming, you don’t know what kind of problems you’re going to run into. You can try to plan as much as you want, but there are so many variables that come with running a large-scale program that it’s very difficult to predict what can go wrong.

Mario Gerard: Or what problem you going to encounter tomorrow? You wouldn’t even know that.

Rhea Frondozo: Right. Right. And so, when it comes down to it, there’s always going to be these curve balls that get thrown at you and you can prepare for as many that you think you may know, but it’s hard to predict. And so, knowing how to deal in real time with a problem at hand is very, very important.

Mario Gerard: So, we spoke with three skills, communication, the ability to define clear problems and scope and the problem-solving skill and the being able to deal with ambiguity. So why are these like so important in the large-scale program?

Rhea Frondozo: So, if you can imagine being a TPM, it’s like being the quarterback of your program, you you’re the one calling the plays, which ultimately makes you the key player responsible for determining the success or the failure of the program.

Mario Gerard: To recreate that, right? So, you are calling the shots most of the time. You are the person giving direction of what needs to be done, how they need to be done or what direction they need to take. So, [07:57  inaudible] program, which we run, right. There are so many decisions, a TPM who’s running a breath program takes on a daily, if not a weekly basis. They might have to go and recheck that with somebody. But there’s so many decisions, so many directions he, or she’s giving them.

Rhea Frondozo: Right. Right. A lot of times what happens is when you are in a breath TPM role, your job is to unblock issues that come up. So, you work on this plan, you come up with what you think is going to work. And then day after day, something goes wrong. And it’s your job to figure out, how do you call an audible on what you should do instead, or what you should do differently or who you need to pull in. It’s really your job to take the lead role in not only determining what needs to be accomplished and bringing all the people to do it, but also figuring out what happens when everything goes wrong, and it doesn’t pan out as you expected.

And so, the reality is if you aren’t able to communicate crisply and clearly you can’t leave the team by setting a clear objective and you can’t help unblocking obstacles when you game plans are required. And if you can’t do th