Look Forward; Make Changes

As people are putting Out of Office notices on LinkedIn, we have clearly reached that time of year to reflect backwards and look forward.

As no Delivery Manager has ever considered what has come before them, let’s focus next week’s newsletter on x things (number to be decided as I am making this up as I write) to consider in 2025.

1. It’s You, your Team, your Company, the Client, the User, the Product in that order.

Even the most ardent of UCD teams and organisation will occasionally need to prioritise work that benefits the company, ahead of its users. It’s common sense – especially around anything that could result in lawyers breathing down your neck.

If we don’t always do everything with the user at heart (even if it is 0.01%), think where the heart of the work is.

It’s you, dummy!

If you are working all hours, under pressure with no end in sight, your decision making is bound to impact others. You might be prone to taking the shit umbrella view too far, to the point where your team loses faith in you, because you are not being honest with them. A disgruntled team will always air their views in your company.

If you are external to the company you are working with, they will also see something is wrong. Stand ups, show and tells or retros will have an air of “What value is the DM offering?” about them.

So fix and take care of you, in order to keep everyone and everything on an even keel.

2. Consider your personal development

Are you in a rut? Going through the motions? Have no training budget?

Good. Never fall back on using exams as a means of demonstrating progress. Use the fact that you don’t have a corporate training budget to decide how important that course is. You will know it is important if you have to use your own money.

Or look for another way – reading journals and books (Newsletters are good), listening to podcasts or audiobooks – attending workshops and seminars – to find the information you need.

It will also help you decide what you want to do with the rest of your career, and if your current organisation can support that ambition.

3. Don’t just talk to the same people all of the time

Broaden your network. Embrace new ideas. Never restrict yourself to just listening to people you agree with.

I’m not for one minute suggesting you login to social media and surround yourself with blackguards and ne’er-do-wells. Likewise, don’t just go to Agile events, or DM meetups, as all that does is reaffirm what you believe you already know.

Learn how to be more playful, speak in a different business language and find new ideas, in places you wouldn’t normally look for them.

4. You need to change in order to get that key decision made

One of the things we see in Delivery all of the time, is the concept of a key decision or action sitting in someone else’s inbox.

You’ve done everything you can. To the point where the masses are becalmed on Stand Up and you, like the hero you are, have mounted your trusty steed and set off to remove impediments that block your path.

If this has happened a lot in 2024, then you are the only one to blame for this. Blockers will always exist, it is how you tackle the first couple that determines how your requests will be prioritised.

Work on how you approach the blockers. Think about the methods of communication you can use. Always, and I repeat, always work out how to manage upwards. If nothing has worked, then sit down with those individuals concerned and address this.

5. Shut up about Technical Debt

Or at least reframe it in a way that doesn’t make it sound like you’re asking to rebuild a system you’ve already spent time and money on.

Tech Debt is a classic example of an original idea, no longer being the best approach for the system/service. Examples will include introducing a fudge, hack or bodge to meet a critical release date. Or scaling to the point where the system is now creaking – and all the sticky backed plastic and rubber solution glue won’t help.

If you are constantly going into each sprint or block or work with 110% of tickets based on new features and no means of working on technical debt, you either have to accept it and move on – or document in language understood by all, that it would be highly idiotic to not tackle something that could result in angry, end users.

If you use idiotic and angry in the same sentence it tends to get noticed. It could also mean you get booted off the engagement, but we delivery folk are indispensable, right!

6. Never create anything new

Steal. Borrow. Use internal templates.

You don’t have time to reformat PowerPoint slides, or create confluence pages on Ways of Working, not when there are undoubtedly a thousand other versions of the same thing, sat idly on your SharePoint or Intranet.

If you’ve been in Delivery for as long as I have, you know there’s nothing new. Even if someone says we need guidance on how to run an AI project, or deal with a Data Lake – the planning, managing and reporting are still going to be roughly the same.

Copy, paste and then tinker.

7. Get angry, but don’t react

If someone says your team is not performing. That you, as a DM, are not doing an adequate job. That we’re always behind. If this isn’t true, get as mad as hell – but never there and then. Don’t react to someone who might be looking for that reaction.

It’s better to go away, document a response based on fact/data, play this back and explain why their view may not align with the progress the team is making – and call them all of the names under the sun as you write that up.

If you react. If the relationship breaks down – the only person who is going to suffer will be you.

If it is true - get a grip and don’t make it harder for the rest of us.

8. Never be a thought leader* or influencer without substance

Do you like the sound of your own voice? Then join a choir or consider stand up.

Don’t put all of your effort into being seen as a voice of your industry, when your CV or career path suggests you’ve had a couple of lucky wins, and was in the right place at the right time.

Login to any Business based Social Media platform and you will see hundreds of people using analogies or metaphors to explain how great their ideas are - that either hold no water, or explain what their role was in the success they had. Also, never use your family members to add further emphasis to it.

If you get invited to speak on a single topic at an event, do it – but don’t assume you’re now the voice of a generation.

If you have a niche, the experience and the substance – embrace the invites to go on TV and Radio. If you just like to make yourself sound interesting to a captive audience, rescue an animal and talk to them.

9. Never finish lists on a round number and always avoid alliteration!

(* Yes, I do think this is a terrible thing to call yourself. That’s my issue)

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