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Delivery manager role

A delivery manager is accountable for the delivery of squad work. You can read more about how they do this in the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability Framework.

Working with a squad

Setting up a cycle

The delivery manager will be responsible for:

  • reviewing the cycle brief written by the team leads and ensuring yourself and the entire squad understands the problem or goal, working closely with product managers manage scope
  • ensuring sub-issues are written and attached to the brief on GitHub (either by writing them, pair writing or delegating to a squad member)
  • establish clear ownership of work between squad members, to prevent silos and misunderstandings
  • deciding on the best method of delivery for the squad make up and context in any given cycle, including deciding the frequency of ceremonies, and how work is sequenced
  • modelling good GitHub hygiene and making sure the squad to visualise their work through fully completed issue descriptions, accurate done whens, labels, milestones and other tracking mechanisms available

Delivering the work

The delivery manager will be responsible for:

  • making sure the squad is working on the deliverables of the brief, maintaining focus and avoiding unplanned work or scope creep
  • applying healthy pressure to ensure squads are working to meet a deadline
  • identifying and resolving blockers and issues such as decision making, uncertainty over priorities, and arranging review / input from specific disciplines
  • seeking and providing clarity when there is uncertainty
  • monitoring risks to delivery and applying mitigations ahead of a risk materialising, escalating to the Lead Delivery Manager if it cannot be resolved within the team
  • ensuring all decisions which can be resolved by a squad are before a cycle ends, and ensuring the resulting actions are recorded in GitHub

Wrapping up a cycle

The delivery manager will be responsible for:

  • closing completed briefs and sub-issues when a cycle is complete, and transferring any outstanding issues to a new brief or creating a small story
  • communicating to the Lead Delivery Manager what has been delivered at the end of a cycle, and what needs to carry over
  • following up on pain points expressed in retrospectives, driving iterations to ways of working