Delivery Managers are like a good cocktail

As a multi-skilled professional in software delivery, I often have been asked 2 questions...."what is the difference between a scrum master and delivery manager" and "what is the difference between a project manager and delivery manager". Let me answer this here.....

A scrum master is exactly that, a role defined in the scrum framework, a facilitator and coach of scrum within a scrum team. A delivery manager must also possess this skill but must have the ability to adapt to other frameworks i.e Kanban, XP, FDD, etc....a delivery manager must also possess project management skills and must be able to transition into that role and everything that comes along with it.

"Agile Dave, a delivery manager is not a project manager"

No, a delivery manager isn't a project manager but like I say, you must have that skill.

Let me give you an example..... Recently I was working for a fintech business undertaking a big initiative that required input from 5 different delivery squads, including infrastructure, security, support and product squads. I took this project on using an "initiative management framework" creating stage gates and reports, progress reports, risk and issue logs, dependency trackers, support plans, release plans and pulling different people in from different parts of the business to collaborate and deliver this piece of work.

Is this delivery management? yes, but it is also project management. I did not stop working with the squads I was assigned to while I took this up, still coaching and improving the teams I was working with, producing sprint reports, still running daily scrums, planning, refinements, reviews and retros. So, i was doing a scrum master role and a project manager role. This is what delivery managers do.

So lets talk agile frameworks

I find this hard to talk about because I LOVE being a scrum master. I love working with teams and seeing the teams improve and I love injecting and cultivating a winning mentality within the teams that I work with but....there is a time for Kanban as there is a time for other frameworks.

I have worked with teams who work BAU, I have worked with platforms and security teams and sometimes, scrum just isn't right for them....sometimes it is and it is for a good software delivery professional to see that and change up when needed.

So if you are a scrum master, why are you running Kanban? because you need to sometimes. I think the reality is that in todays world, most scrum masters will and probably do have the ability to run both. As a delivery manager, it is expected and I feel that the delivery manager title has less constraints, even if the reality is fairly similar.

How does a good delivery manager approach this?

Lets be pro-active. As a software delivery professional you are paid for your expertise and acting on the skills and knowledge that you have.

Again, lets go to our examples..... While working in my most recent position, I was contacted by a representative from the security team and advised that they had some work for the team I was working with. I took it upon myself to find out more, find out how many teams would need to undertake work for this initiative and I decided to take it on from a project perspective. Nobody asked me to do this, why would they!! they may not know the best way to deal with this and it is my job to coach this and facilitate this work. Also, I felt that this could encourage other delivery managers to do the same.

So in short, it is not for anybody else to decide which sort of projects and when to switch to your project management hat, it is for you and you should have the confidence, experience and skill to know when and how to initiate this.

Delivery managers do all this?

Yes, some do.......and there is more. I have worked business analysis roles and test management roles in my past. I have often found myself helping with analysis and stepping in to product owner type roles, especially working with platforms teams who quite often don't have product owners/managers. I do feel that this isn't required very often in delivery management and shouldn't be but sometimes if you have these skills then it is a bonus and you can provide extra value.

Final thoughts

So, delivery managers need to be multi-skilled and a lot of us come from Test, BA, Product, Project and even Engineering backgrounds. As we are professional leaders, most have line management experience and so we have a varied skill set and you can often find different delivery managers have different strengths and weaknesses but we strive to improve ourselves as we do our teams and those around us.

So throw in some scrum, a hint of Kanban, a nice portion of project management, leadership experience, a base of communication skills and the hard stuff....the ability to realise that we are always as much the student as the coach. Then have the confidence to mix it all together.

Delivery managers are like a good cocktail.