The Agile Delivery Lead (ADL) is an enabler for project and product delivery done in a way that works sustainably for the team and the business, and with a default reach for agile principles in all aspects of the work.

Navigating real complexities of delivery: dependencies, impediments, flow, and team dynamics the ADL balances structure with adaptability, recognising the need for planning but demonstrating that for success, planning must be a continuous activity.

A leader, providing management  of project and product goals, an enabler rather than an enforcer, a counterbalance to the problems of unfettered change. Perhaps broader in scope, maybe less disruptive than a good Scrum Master, the ADL is becoming a popular role with organisations looking to ratchet their strategic adoption of agile so far, and blend it with the tactical needs of day to day delivery.

It’s a sensible combination for the times we’re in.

Hire me as an Agile Delivery Lead for a pragmatic implementation of agility, to balance delivery, systemic needs and continuous evolution of practices that move the organisation forward.

Here are some examples of how I lead on the essential delivery with the added value of an agile approach.

Estimates:  Using a range and probability in the conversation; start being accurately imprecise over precisely inaccurate

Estimation:  Relative estimation’s main benefit comes from the conversations it drives.  Exploring why one person rates something as 3 x the effort that a colleague does will expose mis-understandings, gaps and assumptions that are best smoked out early.

Meaningful Metrics:   Story point velocity was a novel disruption but a simplistic practice.  Sometimes a good conversation starter, but instead I use throughput and cycle time data to show both capacity and speed.   Internal flow metrics of WIP and Age show where the teams need to tune their approach to improve these.

Forecasts:  role modelling what we all instinctively know but often pretend otherwise – every prediction of data is a range with a probability.  I’ll show how to switch the planning conversation towards this truth.

Empiricism:  Many things affect delivery planning; often overlooked is past performance, the rate of emergent work, unexpected work, re-work, the likelihood of defects….  I use all of this data for dynamic planning to keep the surprises down.  It’s a bit more scientific than adding a 10% buffer.

Hard deadlines: are a real thing, but other ‘fixed dates’ will be an aspiration, a calculation or a target.  All OK, but I’ll get to the heart of which it is and use the appropriate options for the context to ensure the best value outcome.