{"id":5454,"date":"2018-04-10T10:40:32","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T09:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ee.yelkdev.site\/?p=5454"},"modified":"2023-09-25T10:28:19","modified_gmt":"2023-09-25T09:28:19","slug":"day-in-life-technical-delivery-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.equalexperts.com\/blog\/ee-life\/day-in-life-technical-delivery-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"A day in the life: Technical Delivery Manager"},"content":{"rendered":"

My name is Lyndsay Prewer, and I\u2019m currently working as a Technical Delivery Manager for one of Equal Experts\u2019 public sector clients.<\/p>\n

I share the role with another EE consultant, Beccy, and between us we lead seven teams that develop and maintain our client\u2019s Platform-as-as-Service (PaaS). This is used by 50+ digital delivery teams, distributed all around the UK. These teams design, deliver and support hundreds of microservices that serve online content to the client\u2019s varied customers.<\/p>\n

A typical day for me starts with my train commute into London. I use this time for a mixture of personal reflection, catching up on Slack\/emails, and learning about any parts of the PaaS tech stack that I\u2019m less familiar with (my tech-du-jour is mongodb). This is like catnip to me \u2013 I was a developer before moving into leadership, and I still really enjoy learning new languages and technologies.<\/p>\n

Building our client relationship<\/h3>\n

Once on site, Beccy and I work closely with our client Product Owner, Andrew. One of his daily rituals is a morning coffee run, which we\u2019ll often accompany him on. It\u2019s a great opportunity to chat about current events, whether they be highlights from our weekends or burning issues within the client organisation.<\/p>\n

These impromptu conversations are important \u2013 they provide the wider context that is vital for us to bear in mind as consultants. This allows us to better empathise with our client, better understand their needs and constraints. And the coffee\u2019s good, too.<\/p>\n

Organising for self-organisation<\/h3>\n

Equal Experts strongly supports self-organisation and adaptation to context, and hence each of the teams that Beccy and I serve is free to pick and choose its own agile\/lean practices as they best see fit.<\/p>\n

In keeping with this mindset, each team has its own Delivery Lead and Product Owner. Still, some co-ordination and shared context is essential, and we run a daily scrum-of-scrums (SoS) that achieves this well. We\u2019re also in daily contact with Chris, Equal Experts\u2019 Engagement Manager for this client.<\/p>\n

Ahead of the SoS, Beccy and I often hold our own daily standup to catch up on each other\u2019s successes and challenges, and to co-ordinate who progresses any new items in our shared backlog.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a big fan of pair-programming, and despite our roles being somewhat \u201cnon-technical\u201d, working so closely with Beccy and Chris provides a huge degree of reassurance, affirmation, support and fun \u2013 similar to what I\u2019ve experienced when pair-programming.<\/p>\n

Getting stuff done<\/h3>\n

My work is often derived from the SoS meeting. Although each of the platform teams has clear ownership over different work areas, the breadth and scale of our platform and digital services inevitably means that some issues defy clear categorisation.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where my role comes in. In addition to facilitating cross-team co-ordination, a key aspect of the job is picking up these miscellaneous issues and either completing them, or progressing them to a point where they are ready to hand over to a specific team.<\/p>\n

This often takes the form of engaging with a range of stakeholders to gauge the scope of a problem, and shape its business and technical aspects into a form that\u2019s sufficiently well defined for a platform team to progress. I love this part of the role, as it requires a diverse set of skills:<\/p>\n