Delivery Manager’s Role in an Agile Project
A person in a delivery management role is someone with extensive experience in software development, projects coordination, and leadership. They focus on making things happen and ensuring teams have everything they need and more to succeed.
With a focus on understanding the role of a delivery manager in an agile project, this article explores what the position entails and the benefits it offers to an agile project.
What’s Expected in an Agile Team/Organization
A project that employs agile methodologies is able to deliver excellent results in iterative blocks of time. Thanks to the methodology, an agile project can adapt to unexpected changes as the team knows how to embrace those changes, even in later development stages.
One of the most critical components of a successful Agile team is having a supportive environment from the larger organization around them. This can be done by ensuring a clear product vision and goals and creating a culture of trust, collaboration and transparency. Agile teams are also designed to be self-organizing, which requires a high level of trust. These elements are precisely it is advantageous to have a Delivery Manager on the development team for agile projects.
Responsibilities of a Delivery Manager in an Agile Project
A Delivery Manager ensures that the project is delivered efficiently with minimal defects. The delivery manager’s scope includes managing the team, establishing and communicating the vision, determining priorities, removing obstacles, and ensuring that requirements are met.
Accept Accountability for Team Resources, Planning, Executing and Tracking the Projects
A delivery manager is accountable for planning, executing, and tracking a software development project. They are also responsible for managing team resources, monitoring progress, and identifying risks early on before they become serious problems. Delivery Managers provide that support by working collaboratively with the team on the best methodology and processes for completing tasks.
DM’s can add immense value to an organization by sparking change. If a process is slowing down a team or the team’s happiness index is declining, the delivery manager can assist them in formulating appropriate transformations to boost productivity. These changes may include restructuring tasks addressing obstacles, or refining processes.
Understand Business Needs and Objectives
A delivery manager needs to have a deeper understanding of all parts of the project and business. They need the skills and knowledge to identify business needs, translate them to developer requirements, define solutions, and develop customer experiences. With their deep understanding of the organization, delivery managers are exceptional communicators who know how to address distinct clients, stakeholders, and departments over various hierarchical levels, with the overarching goal of leading their teams to success.
Report and Communicate With Transparency to Clients
Communication is essential in an agile organization. Delivery managers are responsible for coordinating with and reporting to clients with transparency to remove any obstacles that might prevent the timely completion of a project. The Delivery Manager ensures that the client understands how their project is progressing, what work has been completed, what work still needs to be done, and what additional work will be required to meet their goals.
Coach, Monitor, and Motivate Team Culture
Delivery managers are also responsible for the team’s performance and motivation. In order to ensure a good team culture in a project, they must provide a good atmosphere that allows the employees to thrive in their position.
Agile delivery managers know that if their team members are appropriately motivated, they will have the preparation to tackle anything that comes their way. The right incentives and recognition can help motivate team members to be productive and committed to the project. Delivery managers are to work closely with senior management, the human resource team, and Agile practice leads to identify opportunities for improvement and create plans to monitor executable improvements continuously.
Scrum Master for the Agile Team
A delivery manager takes on the role of a scrum master, typically responsible for enforcing Agile best practices and methods to enable teams to deliver high-quality work on time while removing blockers. The delivery manager is flexible in their duties and can do many different tasks on behalf of the agile team and the client to deliver a quality product for the customer.
What is Out of Scope for a Delivery Manager?
The Delivery Manager does not take on the Product Owner role. Product owners primarily focus on the product itself and translating the company vision into tangible actions.
The primary job of a delivery manager is to ensure the project goes smoothly and runs its course with the fewest possible interruptions and to ensure the teams have everything they need to deliver in a timely fashion. They are there to ensure the project team is aligned with the client’s expectations and meets their deadlines.
Benefits of a Delivery Manager
Delivery managers are very valuable for agile projects. The delivery manager is the backbone of the support for the customer and the team for the project. The delivery manager focuses on the deliverables, the customer business needs, the team’s productivity, and the removal of all blockers to ensure the project’s success. The delivery manager handles various tasks, from managing the project backlog in collaboration with the product owner to coordinating meetings and schedules to making sure the necessary feedback mechanisms are in place. They achieve this by being the main point of contact, working closely and collaborating with all departments involved in the project, and ensuring that the project teams perform as expected.
Delivery Managers are also “Expectation Mangers.” They manage the customer’s expectations to ensure they are aware of deliverables and schedules and any obstacles blocking them. Delivery managers manage the team’s expectations of what is required of them and ensure the team meets the expectations to complete their tasks and deliverables in a timely manner. Delivery managers always communicate and manage expectations to ensure a successful end product for the customer.
Conclusion
In a world where technology dominates society from every angle, more and more organizations are finding ways to keep up with the latest trends and adjust their methods of operation to be more in tune with the expected standards expected of tomorrow. This, in turn, has altered the overall way we work, and though delivery managers have existed for a long time, their job description has gradually transformed into that of master project facilitators. Delivery managers offer a unique skill set that can help organizations to improve their project delivery process and achieve their goals with better overall ROI.
