What is Delivery Management?
Tony (Management Consultant) Posted 7/6/2006

Delivery Management is a much broader scale of project management. It is the organization, administration, and supervision of the people, processes, and technologies, which when combined into a comprehensive plan, provides the business and technical functions needed to successfully achieve what a client expects to receive. The person responsible for this type of work is referred to as the delivery manager, delivery director, delivery vice president, or account manager depending on the organization. For purposes of this blog, the term delivery director will be used.

There are many likenesses between a project manager and delivery director. Whereas the project manager will get into more of the details, the delivery director oversees what is going on at a higher level and across more areas of responsibility. The delivery director is typically a more experienced individual that gets assigned to the larger, more visible projects. This individual also has more direct involvement with management at a higher level such as with the client, third party vendors, executive steering committees, board of directors, etc. The delivery director anticipates the actions, thoughts, and directions of the client, and manages the client without them really knowing it.

Let's begin by understanding what delivery is all about. There are many stages in the business cycle such as getting a lead, turning the lead into a prospect, working towards the sale, closing the sale, and then making the magic happen - delivering what was promised. Now some of the readers may say they do not have to worry about this cycle because they work in a company where they get a request to do the work and their management tells them what to do. In some cases it may be that simple, for example, very small projects such as those under a work-month. However, if you look a little closer, you will see there is a lot of internal selling going on at various levels.

Below is an example of a scenario of what may occur behind the scenes. As you will see, there is a great deal of work that has to be done before it gets to the delivery stage.

• Don, the VP of Finance for Southwest Vending was having lunch with an old friend (Lori) who heads up a Finance department in another company.
• Lori explained to Don that they just implemented a new application that allows the customers to review their records via the web, which has saved Lori's company thousands of dollars.
• Don believed that his company would benefit from a similar application. After lunch, Don called in his department heads to tell them that he wants the same type of application that Lori has, but better.
• To get the project started, Don assigned Randy to serve as the Project Sponsor. In this role, Randy has to figure out what is needed to make this happen so he calls his friend Mark, the Chief Information Officer (CIO) in the Information Technology (IT) department.
• Randy and Mark discuss the situation so that Mark can get a better understanding of what Randy and his boss are looking for from a business perspective and also determine how much of an impact it would be to the IT area. Mark tells Randy that this is something his department can handle but to get this officially started, Randy will have to fill out a request for services so that the project can be estimated and approved by upper management.
• Randy is not familiar with this process so Mark has him work with Kristin, his Application Manager in charge of financial computer systems.

Whether it is a third party or internal organization, many of the same steps occur in advance of the development. Depending on the actual need for the application, the funds available, and the degree of politics that take place in the company, it could take a year before the development actually starts.

So What's My Point?

Getting to the delivery stage for a large-scale project requires a great deal of up-front work. By the time it gets to the point where a delivery team comes into play, a company could have spent one million dollars over the course of a year. Whether it is a consulting company or an internal organization, the effects of what the delivery organization produces will determine if the project was successful. This could be a highly technical software project or a business process development project. If you do not deliver what was agreed to in the timeframe expected, the chances for additional business is remote. That is why the delivery organization has to be in sync with the sales group or internal organization requesting the work on the front end and the support team on the back end. If the support team has difficulty maintaining the product, costs will increase, personnel will get frustrated and leave, and the client will be quite upset.

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Delivery Director Skill Set and Profile
Tony (Management Consultant) Posted 7/14/2006

In my previous blog, "What is Delivery Management?" (see URL at bottom of page), I identified it as a much broader scale of project management and indicated that there are various titles that can go along with the person responsible for this type of work. The one used is a delivery director.

In this blog, I am going to identify the skill sets of what a delivery director may have and provide a sample profile of what a delivery director's background may look like.

Delivery Director Skill Set

Sound delivery management is essential for project success and consistent client satisfaction. Delivery directors are always under pressure with many roles to be performed including planning, monitoring and reporting, resource management, quality and risk management, problem and change management, etc. The delivery directors ability to understand and be effective in these roles is based on actual experience and best practices used in successful projects. For projects of a technical nature, the delivery director should have some understanding of the technology being used so that they can relate to their technical staff.

I have seen very confident, educated people take on large projects only to find out they did not have the proper skill sets. Taking on a large project can be terrifying the first time especially if you feel unprepared. In most cases you have the confidence to do it because of your past experiences. But if your past experiences were in the same area then you have not fully developed. The successful candidate will have a blend of these skills and the ability to communicate with the business and technology areas. This will allow the candidate to sharpen business skills that they need to advance and stay competitive. The right person should also be a true leader.

The following list gives a brief description of the Delivery Director's skill sets.

Communications Management - The processes required to ensure timely and appropriate generation, collection, dissemination, storage, and ultimate disposition of project information.

People Management - Making the most effective use of all the people involved with the project. It includes all the project stakeholders such as sponsors, customers, individual contributors, and others. This relates to life balance, retention, and career progression.

Leadership - Involves providing motivation and direction to a team for the successful completion of a project. Delegating responsibility appropriately and empowering team members to deliver results.

Client Satisfaction - The evaluation process used by the client to measure engagement quality and satisfaction.

Scope Management - The processes required to ensure that the project includes all the work required, and only the work required, to complete the project successfully. It is primarily concerned with defining and controlling what is or is not included in the project.

Expectation Management - Involves making compromises with different groups or organizations in order to meet or exceed stakeholder needs and expectations. It will be up to the delivery director to determine when to make these judgments

Infrastructure Management - Implements all the necessary components for people, process, technology, and knowledge. This includes areas such as the Desktop Support, Help Desk, Network, Operations and Security.

Risk Management - Includes the processes concerned with identifying, analyzing, and responding to project risk so that it will decrease the chance of a risk's occurrence and/or its impact on the engagement

Knowledge Management - The process of capturing, storing, and indexing the information gathered. It also involves sharing everyone's expertise, experience and knowledge.

Business Management - The process for evaluating and designing the economic business relationship and structure with the clients and suppliers. This relates to how the deal is structured, organized, and executed.

Cost Management - The set of activities directly related to engagement costs and profits. Cost Management includes the processes required to ensure that the project is completed within the approved budget

Time Management - The processes required to ensure timely completion of the project.

Metrics Management - The statistics that are estimated and defined during engagement planning to compare measurement of plan vs. actual during the execution phase of the engagement. Metrics include financial and resource-related statistics

Quality Management - The processes required to ensure that the project will satisfy the needs for which it was developed.

Procurement Management - The processes required to acquire goods and services from outside the organization requesting the work.

Value Management - The addressing of the client's critical business issues and providing valuable solutions.


Delivery Director Profile

There are many people that on paper would be an ideal candidate and conform to the profile. However, this does not mean that this candidate would be qualified to handle a large scale project. A Human Resources organization may have a list of qualifications on file that they used in the past to hire someone for this type of project. This may be a good start but I would suggest that this be taken a step further. The interviewing managers may want to look at the candidates from a different perspective. After all, this is one "people" investment that cannot be taken lightly. To start with, a series of questions or topics can be developed to determine what the responses would be in various areas such as conflict management, problem solving, service and support, strategic/analytical thinking, communication, etc. What this does is provide the interviewers with an indication of how the delivery director will function within their environment. The interviewers would then provide feedback to the hiring manager who would make the final decision based on who would be able to perform better and fit in the company's culture. On a large project, the right person with a commitment to success is needed from the beginning. If the hiring manager is not comfortable doing the interviews internally and if the budget allows for it, the company can look to one of the many behavioral assessment companies that do this type of work.

There are several factors that a company can use to assess the prospective candidates but two areas to consider include:
Character
• Is the candidate self-motivated?
• Is the candidate an effective listener?
• Is the candidate willing to take risks?
• Does the candidate have high standards?
• Is the candidate willing to be accountable for all results?
• Is the candidate goal oriented?
• How does the candidate respond to change?
• Does the candidate have an ego?

Experience
• Does the candidate have problem solving skills? Does the candidate have the ability to define the problem and come up with a solution that fits the problem?
• Does the candidate have the ability to produce the work products (i.e.: deliverables) especially under unusual, out-of-the-ordinary conditions?
• Does the candidate have the ability to communicate effectively? Can the candidate appropriately and thoroughly inform and respond to others to elicit interest and a cooperative response?
• Is the candidate adaptable to taking on more responsibility?
• Does the candidate have leadership potential? Is the candidate assertive or aggressive, decisive or unsure, show initiative or just follow along, and competitive or easy going?
• Is the candidate service oriented? Can the candidate work with the client, satisfy the clients needs while staying within the boundaries of the scope, and handle conflicts in a reasonable manner? If the skills present a more sales focused individual then the candidate may not be a good fit for this role.
• Does the candidate have strong organization values such as working within the defined corporate protocol and recognizing authority relationships (i.e.: chain of command)?

When the interview process is complete, the hiring manager should compile the results to determine the overall strengths and weaknesses based on the indicators used. These should be compared to the documented baseline factors. The decision can then be made to continue looking, bring the candidate back in for additional interviews, or hire the candidate.

There are times when a description of a term is not as clear as an example. Therefore, to help the reader understand the profile of the delivery director, some additional information of what this individual's background would look like and the type of engagement a delivery director may oversee is provided.

Delivery Director Sample Profile:
• At least 15 years of management experience with proven leadership skills, has had P&L responsibility, and managed projects of $10M or larger
• Managed teams of 30 or more people in various geographic locations with a proven track record of completing projects on time and within budget
• Has worked at multiple client accounts to gain experience in working with and handling different types of clients; strong client facing abilities including the ability to handle scope issues.
• Has the ability to work with senior management and work within the political structure of his/her own organization as well as the clients
• Is able to communicate effectively in writing, verbally, and through presentations
• Possess strong people skills - is able to work with other organizations such as third party vendors, sales, marketing, and legal, and understand their terminology; understand the requirements for the various staff positions
• Strong planning abilities (both strategic & tactical)
• Has an understanding of the technology to be used for the project
• Strong negotiation skills

So What's My Point?

To provide project success and client satisfaction for these large-scale projects, a special type of individual is needed. This person is referred to as a delivery director but can have many different titles. The bottom line is that this person must be experienced in many different areas to succeed. There are 16 mentioned in this document but more can be identified to describe what is expected of the delivery director for any given project.

The profile for the type of delivery director will depend on the type of project being done, the executive management that the delivery director will report to, and the company's environment. A thorough research for the right person should be conducted because if the company is investing significant monies in the project, they should spend the appropriate amount of time to select the right person.

Regards,
The Delivery Doctor

http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/pm/delivery/archives/what-is-delivery-management-10341