How Coda helps Technical Program Managers execute their roadmap

Discover the ways a TPM at Coda uses Coda to align teams, remove blockers, and increase communication.

Jane Chiu

Technical Program Manager at Coda

How Coda helps Technical Program Managers execute their roadmap

By Jane Chiu

Share this article

Share on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Facebook
Every day, there are on average 2,700 flights coming in and out of Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world’s busiest. While pilots are making sure individual planes make their way to their destinations safely, just as critical are the air traffic controllers who conduct all the aircraft so they don’t get off schedule, or worse, collide. I like to think of my role as Technical Program Manager (TPM) as the de facto air traffic controller of the development process. But instead of coordinating jumbo jets, I’m directing information, ideas, budgets, and plenty more. Working as a TPM across various companies, I’ve discovered that most teams encounter the same problems—but the solutions vary. After joining Coda, I feel like I’ve finally discovered a productive solution to handle the unique problem sets TPMs face: gathering data / information, making sure that data / information stays fresh and useful for teams, and removing roadblocks to ensure projects move forward. Here’s how I use Coda to help solve each of of them more efficiently.

Avoid manual toil by building a single source of truth.

 Problem: When there’s no centralized place for people to consolidate information, it ends up living nowhere and everywhere. I like to call it the “manual toil” issue. Because without that single source of truth, a TPM spends an inordinate amount of time hunting and gathering. And in many cases they become that source of truth themselves. Solution: At Coda, I use a team hub as our repository for all the key information the team will need to do their jobs. No more, “which folder?” or “can you send me...” Everything is in the hub, and the team knows they can go there to find it. Even if I’m on vacation, the team can still access all the things they need to know, whenever they need to know it.

Keep data fresh and teams aligned.

 Problem: It’s not enough to bring your teams and tools together in a hub—everyone also need to trust the reliability of the information.
Solution: With Coda’s sync features, everything in my team’s hub updates in real time. All I have to do is connect our doc with data sources, like Jira using the Jira Pack. If I make changes in one tool, they’re reflected in the other. Beyond Jira, I also use the Snowflake Pack and Figma Pack, but there are hundreds of Packs, so it’s easy to sync all the tools we use to our team hub. Syncing is great for getting rid of those low-level check-ins. The same doc that stores all our data hosts project trackers that are linked to each team member’s progress. Now I get fewer “what’s the status of...?” Slack messages, which my team very much appreciates! With all of our work linked to the same doc, we can simply flip statuses to “complete” instead of continually pinging other static versions of projects, always trying to determine which is the latest. And since our reporting is also contained in our team hub, I never have to worry about sending not-quite-updated numbers to leadership.

Get that 30,000 foot view and remove roadblocks more easily.

 Problem: Even if teams have all the information, sometimes they still can’t do their jobs because of one roadblock or another. Whether it’s changing requirements, poor alignment, or simply too many meetings, it’s the TPM’s role to navigate the team around these events and facilitate resolutions if that’s not possible. Solution: This is where everything starts to build on itself when using Coda. Since I save time gathering the necessary information, everything’s in one place and it’s all up to date, I’m now able to gain context and a purview I otherwise wouldn’t have. I can see the problems before they happen, which helps me keep things calm(er), more organized, and facilitates smarter decisions—because my team is no longer stressing about logistics.

Landing the planes safely.

 Being an air traffic controller-TPM means near-constant risk mitigation. Coda has made my job, and that of my team’s, much “safer,” allowing me to stay as informed as possible, communicate more easily, and help solve problems as they show up. If you’re curious what Coda can do for your workflow, we’d love to show you. Schedule a one-on-one with one of us!
Schedule a one-on-one

Related posts

Explore more resources for product teams.
Automate roadmap updates

No more chasing drivers and gathering data from multiple tools.

5 ways teams use Jira + Coda

Teams connect Jira and Coda to better manage their work.

Accelerate execution

Feel more in control and make better decisions with your engineering teams.