A Year in the Life of a Delivery Manager
I joined the Wellcome Trust in January 2022 as a Delivery Manager in the Data and Digital team. This was a new role for me. My background is in project management at tech agencies and start ups. I was brought in to support product teams to work effectively, using self-organising principles and agile ways of working. These teams consist of product managers, software engineers, product designers, user researchers and data analysts. A year on, I am reflecting on the expectations, challenges and surprises that arose.
Great Expectations
I had big expectations for my first day. Working at Wellcome had been a long term aim since being introduced to the organisation during my master’s degree in Social Policy. However, a few things were daunting. Firstly, the size of the organisation and the team. I had previously worked at organisations with less than 30 employees. The Digital and Data department is around 45 people and Wellcome has roughly 1,000 employees. Would I be a very small fish in a big sea? Secondly, my experience was more in ‘project’ management than ‘delivery’. Would I be able to pivot? Finally, ‘agile’ formed a big part of the job description. I had gained a Prince2 qualification in 2021 and had practical knowledge but would it be enough to be an active participant in Wellcome’s agile community?
Time to Stand Up
Over the past year, I’ve learned some practical lessons on the difference between project and delivery management. Soft skills like keeping stakeholders happy and removing blockers from team members’ paths are harder to measure than a data analyst building a dashboard in Tableau, for example. It differs from being a project manager as the role focuses on applying processes to ensure the iterative delivery of product so that it is continuously improved rather than completing projects with fixed goals within a given timeframe.
At Wellcome, delivery managers are there to enable teams to deliver value to our users (quickly and often) through digital products such as websites, Tableau dashboards, research content search engines and a bespoke CRM system for all our grants. Our delivery team consists of a delivery lead and two delivery managers working across nine products within Data and Digital. We work very closely with product managers and our users, who are a mix of Wellcome staff and external users such as researchers and policy makers. Delivery managers can also be found in other departments but we are not a common function within the organisation. Delivery managers outside of Wellcome work in places like the Civil Service or technology companies.
Delivery managers facilitate team events to enable the teams to self-organise and continuously improve. Regular team events in our teams are, for example, the daily 15-minute stand up and the weekly demo to showcase our work and receive feedback. As a delivery manager I organise the agenda, timings and keep the meeting moving along. Many of these events take inspiration from agile and sprint methodology (which you can learn more about in the Scrum Guide) to encourage transparency. These events help bring awareness to blockers or loss of focus, I then work to remove them or make sure the team stays focused on our product or sprint goals.
A Year Later
There have been challenges across the past year from resourcing shortages, external deadlines and other unexpected hurdles. Part of the delivery manager role and working in an agile way means expecting change and to be comfortable with it. For example, if user research demonstrates a need for an unplanned feature then I work with the product manager to adjust sprint boards and roadmaps. Spotting blockers can be an obvious endeavour or a more subtle art where you have to read between the lines. For example, keeping an ear out for people saying they are working on a task that has gone on for a longer period of time than expected and following up afterwards to find out what’s blocking them and how we can support them overcome it.
I have learnt the importance of the product manager-delivery manager relationship. This includes ensuring the product manager’s vision is broken down into achievable delivery plans for the team, identifying warning signs of blockers or dependencies that will slow down progress ,and working with the people involved to mitigate them. I’ve learnt to tailor my communication style and to ask more questions when things are unclear from technical matters to shared responsibilities. As I now work with multiple product managers on very different products I adapt my style to each.
In answer to my three main concerns on my first day, it has been a positive mix. A larger organisation means that there are more voices to take into consideration and influence. However, within Data and Digital a flat structure exists, which actually helps instil more of a start-up and adaptive mentality. It also encourages collaboration. And fortunately, Wellcome is a very friendly place to work with people always ready to help, whether that be participating in a user research session, meeting up for a coffee or batting for the illustrious Wellcome Funderbolts softball team.
My pivot into delivery management has hinged mainly on embracing a long-term mindset. Product lifecycles exist for years within Data and Digital, as tools and products are continuously improved. And so does adjusting your approach to individual teams, e.g. a fun retrospective for teams that need it or a more standard one for when under a time crunch. I have been well supported in my transition by Wellcome and I was relieved to find my project management skills were highly transferrable. Last summer, I certified as a Professional Scrum Master I to match my practical experience with theoretical knowledge. Finally, I have been able to transfer this into being an active member of the Agile and Delivery practice group at Wellcome. It is a community of enthusiasts sharing knowledge and ideas related to agile project management methodologies.
Looking Ahead
For my second year in the role, I am excited by the challenges that will arise from some of our larger products having a knock on effect on the whole product ecosystem, which will affect all my teams. There is still much to learn about Wellcome as an organisation with all its different moving parts. And I am looking forward to continuing to be part of such a collaborative team.
If you like the sound of how we work, maybe you’d like to join our team. See all of Wellcome’s open jobs here:
https://wellcome.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/Wellcome
