Relationship between a Product Manager and a Delivery Manager

I often am asked what the relationship should be between a Product Manager and a Delivery Manager and the answer I give almost all of the time is contextual. “oh, it depends… “. I myself have in the past worked with Product Managers with whom I have not quite been able to define the boundaries nor the best working relationship. I do think that this relationship can — and should — be fluid as the two roles can complement each other quite well, so codifying the relationship can lead to rigidity and poor expectations. However, there can be a rough guide to what this relationship could be and here is what I think.

A good place to start, I suppose, is a brief description of both roles and what they entail.

The Product Manager has the overall responsibility for the “shape” of whatever product or service is being delivered and, as a result, the overall direction of the product. In many organisations, the Product Manager is also given a pot of money to deliver the product but I will be skipping the budgeting and estimation/sizing process in this post. Nowadays, there is mention of creating product backlogs and keeping them groomed, estimated, prioritised, etc. These are artefacts of the Agile principles of Product Development and delivery but a focus on these completely miss the real role of a Product Manager.

The Product Manager needs to first and foremost understand, really understand, her user. She needs to constantly ask herself questions like:
* Who is the user?
* What are their needs?
* Why am I creating this product?
* Does my team understand why they are creating this product?
* How is my product being used?
* Am I building the right thing?
* How can I improve it?
* Is my roadmap up to date?
* Will I be able to deliver these features based on the budget I’ve got?
* What is this project costing my business stakeholders?

Naturally, whatever tools and techniques are required in order for the Product Manager to answer the questions will also need to be learned to an expert level.

If this seems like a lot for one person to do, you are right. In fact, it is a lot for one person to do and the responsibility a Product Manager bears is quite high. This is why many organisations have Delivery Managers supporting their Product Managers. By definition, and very simply, a Delivery Manager is that person who ensures that the Product Manager’s product gets delivered. I deliberately do not use the Scrum Master designation as I believe those two can be sometimes conflated i.e. Scrum Master and Delivery Manager. In any case I have a fundamental problem with the designation Scrum Master and I hope to write about this in the near future. Just to give you an idea of why it is problematic, consider this question:

… if my team is not practicing scrum, what am I?

But I digress.

Because a Product Manager needs to constantly ask questions about and validate her product, and because the activities related to this are all-consuming, she needs someone to ensure the day-to-day running of the team is happening. The mundane, boring stuff like:
* Facilitating the establishment of and monitoring ways of working. So for instance if the team has decided to work in an Agile way (which is the ideal way, really) the DM educates himself on what this means and ensures that this way of working is followed
* Creating an enabling environment for continuous improvement to the way the team works
* Enabling visibility of project progress and helping the Product Manager communicate progress to relevant stakeholders
* Introducing processes within the team for things like absence management, time tracking, task scheduling, etc
* Marshalling the team to get involved in exercises like planning and estimation in order to give the Product Manager a picture of relative sizing of various features and an indication of when she can have them
* Tracking spend on the project thus giving the Product Manager valuable information about what her project is costing, thereby helping with forward planning
* Facilitating conflict resolution (because when you have a group of highly skilled and very opinionated experts working together, there will be conflict)
* Removing any impediments that could divert the team from their primary function
* … and basically anything else that diverts her attention from the laser focus her product needs

For football fans, let me use the example of the base of the very successful Arsenal midfield: Francis Coquelin and Santi Cazorla. They work quite efficiently side by side with Coquelin stopping the attacks of the opposition, making key interceptions to prevent incisive passing in the final third of the pitch and generally mopping up at the base of the midfield. His role is popularly also referred to as the “water carrier” role. Cazorla, on the other hand, receives the ball from Coquelin or directly from the defence and orchestrates the attacking play of the team which, ultimately, leads to the goals.

You could almost summarise their roles as Coquelin preventing the team from failing by reducing the chances of the opposition scoring and Cazorla dictating the success of the team by creating the chances for goals with his creative play and vision. (This analogy only works with a team that has an attacking philosophy)

In PM vs DM terms, you can view Santi Cazorla as the Product Manager and Francis Coquelin as the Delivery Manager. One of them holding and driving the creative vision and the other mopping up and ensuring things are ticking over.

Finally, one very important role that the Delivery Manager plays (or might have to play) is as a coach. Consider that each team member brings a particular skill to bear towards the collective in order to contribute to the success of the product, and would presumably be an expert in that field. What they probably won’t be so great at is how to function in the particular way of working that the team has chosen. Cue the Delivery Manager whose responsibility it is to deepen his knowledge and understanding of that way of working in order to give the team the tools it needs to achieve it.

The Product Manager leads and the team follows, with the help of the Delivery Manager. That is the relationship.

One final word…

For the Product Manager

Your team members are not drones. They should also care about the product and customers and you must be open to their challenges, opinions and ideas on how the product can be improved. The worst possible team you can have is one in which nothing gets challenged and they simply follow instructions to the letter without questioning.

For the Delivery Manager

You must be ready and willing to slay the dragon, cuddle the kitten or carry the sewage in your quest to ensure the team can deliver the product. Cultivate relationships outside of the team with people that will be able to help with unblocking any issues in the future. In short, cultivate a good relationship with everyone!

For both roles

There is every chance of conflict with defining roles and drawing the line between your functions. Embrace this conflict and discuss what a good working together could be. Remember what’s most important is the product!