What a delivery lead is not

We are not your parent.

We are not your note taker.

We are not your meeting room booker.

We are not your snack buyer.

We are not your personal assistant.

We are not “always on” any more than you are. We have personal lives and need our balance, too.

We are not “the boss.” You don’t have to always direct your updates in standup to us; tell the team what they need to know.

We are not there to have the difficult conversations you don’t want to have. We’ll give you our counsel, always, but we’re not a stand-in for other leaders who aren’t taking accountability.

As delivery leads, we are there to help our team become a self-organised unit that delivers value effectively, and to do that, we need time to communicate with stakeholders, facilitate sessions, identify, raise and handle blockers as well as spend time with our team members to see how they’re going and what we can do to improve. All of these are high value activities and if not done, can impact both the delivery and health of a team and our team members. We aren’t in teams just to do the tasks nobody else wants to do.

It’s often easy to confuse the outcomes above with tools and techniques, such as agile metrics and reporting. They are a means to an end, and we don’t “own” them any more than we “own” all processes followed by a team (if we did, that team would no longer be self-organising).

If you do find yourself in a position where you aren’t able to prioritise your high value tasks, think about how you can reframe what you’re being asked to focus on. For example, the next time your team asks you to book a meeting room, pose the question back to them in terms of value:

“I could book the meeting room or I could continue preparing a status update to make sure our stakeholders are aware and are able to support the team in removing these blockers.”

This doesn’t mean that you can never book a meeting room or help with a difficult conversation, but be mindful that whatever you say yes to, you’re saying no to other things. Make sure those other things you’re saying no to aren’t what you should be focussing on. Our time is just as important as the rest of the team’s.