Program execution will have lots of challenges. An efficient way of solving the issues in an incremental approach with proper KPI is the key for a Technical Program Manager.

1. Program Challenges
TPM - Problem Solver

2. 01
02
Key challenges
Proposed solution with incremental approach and success criteria
03 Metrics

3. Key Challenges
Key challenges in the current project

4. 6
5
4
3
1
2
Dependency Issue
Other development teams have dependency on the core
team and because of the delay in development of the
core team , others team raised the risk as they can not
progress.
Quality Issues
Developers have raised concerns that they have already
found many issues with the current version of the
product and many more are expected. Delivery is getting
delayed by the Product development team.
Tension within and beyond core team
Team is pulled to multiple activities without having clear
direction which is causing the tension and frustration in
the team . Business and other teams are not satisfying
because of the delay in delivery
Communication Challenge
Team is spread across multiple time zones which is
causing the delay in response
No Clear Plan
Based on the current situation it seems there is no clear
plan for the team to move forward.
Unstable Infrastructure/System
The Development infrastructure/ system environment is
unstable which is causing delays in code delivery.
Delivery of next infrastructure / system delayed by five
weeks because of the unforeseen problems
Key Challenges

5. Proposed solution with incremental approach and success criteria
Proposed solution with incremental approach and success criteria

6. Transform
• Implement KANBAN in the team , limit the WIP
• Implement Unit & integration test framework , defect , risk, communication, change management
• Share the key metrics with Business
• Implement Dependency management ( includes environment and cross team)
• Highly performing and collaborative and motivated team
• Lead the SAFe transformation
• Increase predictability into release health and delivery
• Share best practices and work towards Delivery Excellence
• Process & Metric driven delivery
• Focus on the incremental delivery with high quality
• Reduce reworks due to requirement & design ambiguity
• Revisit and come up with comprehensive QA/Regression strategy
• Control defects, risks and scope
• Discuss with management to implement SAFe (Scaled Agile Framework)
• Inspect and adapt the plans
First 60 days 180 days
Time
360 days
 Identify process gap in the existing plan , if plan does not
exist then create a new project plan
 Identify the stake holders to interact for solving the issues
 Define scope, activities. prioritize, estimation, resources ,
testing /quality , resource , change management plan
 Establish the risk management plan
 Establish the communication plan
 Identify the key metrics to share with the Business
 Establish the KANBAN or the team’s work
 Get the buy in on the established plan from Business
Stabilize
90 days
Recommendation Timeline
6
Optimize

7. Recommendation Success Criteria
Owner
PM and Sr. Developer
Q2 Q3 Q4
• Implement the monitoring
tool
• Build failures reduce <=
10%
1. Configure all the servers, services, components, application URLs for monitoring through a smarter tool. This way, team is able to proactively detect
issues that could impact dev/ testing teams. This enabled comprehensive, end-to-end monitoring of multi-service, heterogeneous network
environments which speeds up troubleshooting and significantly reduces operating costs. Dynatrace is an example of such smarter application.
2. Define and implement build controls, provide independent branches for coding projects which span across multiple releases
3. Monitor huge check-ins and merge conflicts while patching/code quarantine and take necessary steps
4. Mandate code reviews, unit test reports for the code request to check in
5. Implement continuous test integration model upon build deploy and automate the build deploy process
Approach
Q1
Unstable Environment/
System
Smarter way to identify environment/system availability quickly and
easily so as to minimize the impact and down time
Continuous Integration
• Reduce the diagnosis time
• Reduce the defect leakage
• Reduce the operational cost
Approach
• Increase in the throughput
by 30%
• Build failures reduce <=
30%
• Increase in the throughput by
50%
• Build failures reduce <= 50%
• Set up the process for checkin
• With the help dev team and
infrastructure team identify the
smarter monitoring tool and get
the approval 7
1. Increase in the throughput of the team
2. # Build failures because of the code
merging
KPI
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4Challenges

8. Recommendation Success Criteria
Owner
QA Owner,
Developer, PM
Q2 Q3 Q4
• 80% unit test coverage on new
code
• 20% unit test coverage on
regression features
• 20% automation regression
coverage
Approach
Q1
Quality Issue
Set Go / No Go criteria before moving to cloud
Automated regression test
• Improve in unit and functional test coverage
• Improve in automation regression test
• Decrease in post production defects
Approach
• Set the Go/ No Go Criteria
• Set the confidence test suite for each
application
• Define the tool for unit test and functional
test
• Build test automation approach 8
1. % Unit test coverage
2. % functional test coverage
3. % automation test
4. Defect logged vs closed
KPI
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4Challenges
Process for defect management
Unit and Functional Test coverage
1. Before upgrading to latest version or moving to cloud for any product, team needs to do the confidence test on the product and then based on the
outcome, PO need to decide Go/No Go to next level.
2. Developers need to have unit test report for the new code and testers should have the functional test coverage for the product.
3. Manual regression is time taking, so teams needs to start automating the test suites which will reduce the regression time
4. Process need to be set for the defect logging, fixing , verifying and closing..
• 90% unit test coverage on
new code
• 40% unit test coverage on
regression features
• 40% automation regression
coverage
• 100% unit test coverage on new
code
• 60% unit test coverage on
regression features
• 60% automation regression
coverage

9. Recommendation Success Criteria
Owner
PM
Q2 Q3 Q4
• Meeting objective not met
reduced to <=20%
• Delay due to unknown
status reduced to <= 20%
Approach
Q1
Communication
Challenges
Consistent schedule for meeting
Respect to the remote / virtual teams
• Reduce the absence during meeting
• Meet the meeting objectives
• No delay for unknown status
• Effective to reach alignment on complex
issues
Approach
• Meeting objective not met reduced to
<=10%
• Plan for Travel Approval
• Delay due to unknown status reduced
to <= 10% 9
1. # Meeting objective not met because of
the absence of the team member
2. # Time delay because of because of
the unknown status/ improper hand off.
KPI
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4Challenges
Globally dispersed team together twice a year for workshops
Update the status in ALM and proper hand off
1. Share the burden of 24/7 across the team. Every month, each team member needs to have one evening, one mid-day, and one early morning
meeting, and misses one meeting that falls in the middle of their night. No team member is expected to attend a team meeting between 10 pm
and 7 am.
2. People in the same room need to avoid talk to each other and don’t forget about the person on the video screen and the person on the
speaker phone. Value the colleague around the world bring to the table and honor them with consistent inclusion in the conversation.
3. Teams need to update the ALM for the status regularly and share the hand off s with others before leaving
4. Globally dispersed team together twice a year for workshops, which will help in renewing personal ties, building trust, and having unmediated and
embodied experiences together. These times can be used for strategic discussions or decision-making, since it’s much more effective to reach
alignment around complex issues when team is in the same room
• Meeting objective not met
reduced to <=50%
• Delay due to unknown
status reduced to <= 50%
• Meeting objective not met
reduced to <=80%
• Delay due to unknown
status reduced to <= 80%

10. Recommendation Success Criteria
Owner
PM
Q2 Q3 Q4
• Increase in the throughput
by 20%
• Decrease the lead time and
cycle time to <= 20%
Approach
Q1
Tension and frustration
within and beyond the
team
Build the trust, confidence in the team and maintain transparency
Pull mechanism instead of push mechanism
• Motivated team
• Increase in throughput of the team
• Decrease in lead time and cycle time
• External teams can plan based on the teams
commitment
Approach
• Plan to implement the Kanban
• Base line current throughput and lead
time and cycle time
10
1. % increase in throughput
2. % decrease in lead time and cycle time
KPI
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4Challenges
Clear communication with delivery time line
Impediments solved in priority basis
1. Define all the activities team involved, prioritize them and get estimates from the team . Instead of assigning the work create an environment
where team will pick the work from the backlog. Establish a Kanban process in the team.
2. Share the dependent item completion time line with other team.
3. Impediments brought during the daily meeting , need to be solved by PM on priority basis.
4. Share the progress status and relevant metrics with leadership on regular cadence to get back the confidence on the team.
5. Prototype a global “Social Hour” where all invited to bring coffee, lunch - depending on where the teams are and what time it is—and hang out
together on videoconference
• Increase in the throughput
by 30%
• Decrease the lead time
and cycle time to <= 30%
• Increase in the throughput
by 50%
• Decrease the lead time
and cycle time to <= 50%

11. Recommendation Success Criteria
Owner
PM and PO
Q2 Q3 Q4
• Delay in dependency <= 80
hrs
• Defect leakage due to side-
impacts <=10%
1. Current inter team dependencies items need to be prioritized by doing the sync up with the team PO and other team
PM/PO. This sync up needs happen in regular cadence.
2. Involve technical and release stakeholders to rule out or handle dependencies
3. Long term approach- SAFe implementation will solve these issues
Approach
Q1
Inter team
dependency
Prioritize the inter team dependency backlog items
PM/PO regular sync up
• 100% Inter team dependencies analysis
done before design start
• Reduced defect leakage due to side-impacts
Approach
• Delay in dependency <= 40
hrs
• Defect leakage due to side-
impacts <=5%
• Delay in dependency <= 16
hrs
• Defect leakage due to side-
impacts <=2%
• Track time delayed because of the
dependency
• Track Defect leakage due to side-
impacts and get baseline
11
1. # Defects caused due to Side
Impact (requirement
dependencies)
2. Time delayed because of the
dependencies
KPI
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4Challenges

12. Recommendation Success Criteria
Owner
PM
Q2 Q3 Q4
• Control the requirement changes
by 20%
• Improve the predictability by 20%
• Share the advantage of SAFe
with leadership
Approach
Q1
No clear plan
Develop Project plan
Plan the scope, establish CCB for any change
• Usage of Dashboard for teams progress
• Improve in team’s predictability
• Decrease in defect leakage due to last minute
requirement change
Approach
• Have the project plan
• Establish CCB
• Establish the risk management plan
12
1. % decrease in defect due to last minute
change
2. # requirement change once design
finalized
3. % Improvement in predictability
KPI
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4Challenges
Plan for SAFe Transformation
Establish risk management process
1. Develop a project plan for all the activities(move to cloud, upgrade to latest version of product, pre-requisite for cloud, external dependencies)
2. As business is continuously providing the requirements, set a change control board to accept new requirement for the feature where design is
finalized..
3. Risk in the team need to be managed and controlled through the project life cycle.
4. Long term solution – share the advantage of SAFe implementation on program level. If approved, lead the transformation.
• Control the requirement changes
by 40%
• Improve the predictability by 50%
• Share the SAFe transformation
plan to leadership
• Control the requirement
changes by 70%
• Improve the predictability by
80%
• Start implementation of SAFe

13. Metrics
Metrics details captured in individual challenges KPI section . Summary of them captured here.

14. Key Metrics
Metrics / Dashboard Description
Product Backlog KANBAN Board Product backlog Kanban board is a work and workflow visualization tool that enables the team to optimize
the flow of the work for the project
Iteration KANBAN Board Iteration Kanban board is a work and workflow visualization tool that enables the team to optimize the flow
of the work within the iteration
Lead time Lead time clock starts when the request is made and ends at delivery.
Cycle time Cycle time clock starts when work begins on the request and ends when the item is ready for delivery.
Throughput Throughput is based on actual data to represent the number of cards delivered in a given period of time on
a specific Kanban board. This metric will provide the team represented on a Kanban board a way to track
their performance over time
% improve in Unit test coverage Unit test coverage improvement
% improve in Functional test coverage Functional test coverage improvement
Defect found vs Closed Defect found vs closed for a certain duration, which shows turn around time for the defects closure
activities
% improve in predictability Predictability metrics help teams make more accurate estimates about the completion and consistency of
their work items. This can lead to better work prioritization and more targeted communications among
stakeholders