Guiding the Agile Way: Delivery Managers in ESTL
Text: Howard | Content: Ryan, Lit Meng
Full interview here: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7JhKwApO0GYqJbtukobKGF
In ESTL, our Delivery Managers (DM) take on the role of Scrum Masters and play a crucial part in supporting our projects. As an engineer myself whose focus is primarily around the codebase, it never ceases to amaze me how our DMs can wear multiple hats at once. Be it kick-starting team meetings, analysing project requirements, managing stakeholders, or navigating complex bureaucratic constraints, they do whatever it takes to cultivate Agile practices for a team. Today, we’ll be talking to ESTL’s two highly versatile DMs, Lit Meng and Ryan, to find out more about their work.
To start off, could you share with us what you do here in ESTL?
Lit Meng: Sure, let me start first. Maybe I can share about my past life before becoming a Delivery Manager. Previously, I was a project manager working on budget, resourcing, ensuring that projects are on time and on target — the typical project manager stuff. But here as a Delivery Manager, I work as a Scrum Master. You know, build things up for the team, create a positive team culture, help team members maximise their potential, and bring the team together to deliver a product.
Ryan: I’m Ryan, and my previous role was a business analyst (BA). My main responsibility as a BA was to understand project requirements and to translate them into technical requirements for partners to develop solutions. As a Scrum Master in ESTL, like what Lit Meng mentioned, my primary role is to help teams to grow to deliver the product. One big difference is that my previous role focused a lot more on guiding the team on the exact course of actions required to deliver the product. For this role, we must have a lot of trust in the team. We guide the team behind the scenes by suggesting Agile approaches without directly prescribing what to do. So, in this way, we help to grow the team.
Sounds like you try to encourage the team to organically come up with practices or things they ought to do?
Ryan: Yes, that’s true. We probe the team with questions to help them explore different solutions.
Have you ever experienced dysfunctional teams where you guys had to step in to change their behaviour?
Lit Meng: I wouldn’t call the team dysfunctional, but there are teams that find it challenging to adopt Scrum practices. What we do is to raise topics of discussion at the Sprint Retrospective — what are things that have gone wrong and what needs to be improved? This is where our value comes in. Instead of pointing out what the team did or did not do, we set up an environment where team members feel comfortable to reflect and surface their concerns. For example, if they did not do their Sprint Planning, they could decide for themselves what they need to do next. I think this self-discovery is important for the team.
Ryan: When a wrong decision is made, there is no single person who is accountable, as we do everything as a team. Likewise, when the product is successfully delivered, the entire team takes the credit.
Sounds like what you do has to be nuanced and challenging. How did you guys acquire the skill sets to be a successful Delivery Manager?
Ryan: Yeah definitely. There are a lot of expectations for a Scrum Master. We need to be able to facilitate discussions, at the same time guide the team to solutions without being prescriptive. Some trainings we go to are Scrum courses. We also do our self-learning through podcasts by various Scrum trainers. There are also articles published by professional Scrum coaches where we will read and continually hone our understanding of Agile delivery.
Lit Meng: I don’t think I’m successful yet; I’m still learning a lot. I would say that I learn from courses, studies, and a lot of my past experience as a project manager. However, I have to consciously evaluate myself. Everytime I find myself being too directive, I would say, look, how can I do this in a non-directive way to allow self-discovery for the team? Hence, it’s based a lot on past experiences of how I used to work. Another way to learn is to have a good network of friends, to draw on their learning. For example, I know an Agile coach in SIA, and he could share his experience implementing Agile in a large company.
How was the switch from being a project manager to a Delivery Manager, and what were the challenges faced as you transition into this new role?
Lit Meng: Big challenge, of course. Most of it comes from people’s expectations, especially in GovTech. Previously, they expected project managers to deliver by hook or by crook. As a Delivery Manager, you have to take a step back in pushing the team, as we want the team to grow and learn from their own practices. However, the expectations of the managers are still there, and we have to manage that.
Ryan: Yes. One of the greatest challenges, before we tackle the team’s challenges, is to cross our own hurdles. We must learn to be patient, that’s for sure. In the organisation, Agile is a new thing. It’s not something that can be implemented overnight after we teach or preach Agile to the team. It takes patience to see the change and impact taking place. We should not be discouraged, as it will require a couple of sessions for people to realise how they can benefit from this whole Agile process. There’s also this expectation that there is no plan in Scrum.
Lit Meng: Which is absolutely a myth! In fact, we do a lot of planning in Scrum, just that we don’t plan too far ahead. For example, during the Daily Scrum, we do short-term planning for what we will do for the day. During the Sprint Planning, we plan for what we intend to do within the Sprint Cycle for the next two weeks. So one of the hurdles to go through is to give stakeholders the confidence that the team is able to plan properly. We simply don’t overplan.
Ryan: Another difference as a Delivery Manager is that I get to interact more with the end users. We are advocates of the outside-in approach, so we gather a lot of input from our customers. As Delivery Managers, we get the opportunity to take part in user interviews and stakeholders, to build up rapport with our customers. With that, we get to understand their pain points better, and hence develop solutions and products to better address their problems. This is opposed to blindly following a set of requirements and features that we think users might need.
Were there moments during your job where you felt jaded or disappointed by how stakeholders responded to what you were doing as a Delivery Manager?
Lit Meng: Of course. Sometimes it’s a mismatch of expectations. The big challenge is that the change we are effecting now is on a project and product level. But to manifest Agile changes in the organisation and enterprise level is a huge challenge for us. So, of course we get disappointed sometimes. There are times where the Product Owner is unsure what he’s doing, and so on. Complaints can come, but in my opinion, these are smaller issues. Ultimately, is the organisation moving towards more Agile practices? That is something we will continue to work on, one step at a time. Of course, we think big, but we will first start small within our immediate parent organisation, ITD.
Ryan: As Delivery Managers, we try to advocate changes to the mindset. Hence, unlike the engineers, who can see the fruits of their labour in a very short time frame, our successes are less tangible. Many times, we cannot see the outcome of our efforts so soon. To answer your questions, there are definitely times where we feel jaded or that we do not see results. So, as I mentioned earlier, one thing I always remind myself is to be patient.
But of course, along the way, there are already little snippets of successes. For example, we have team members commenting during Sprint Retrospective that they felt fortunate having Scrum Masters to guide the team. They felt that they could better appreciate the problem space by implementing the Scrum framework for their project. We also have a main stakeholder, who’s a divisional director, who commented during a Sprint Review that he’s a believer and advocate of Agile now. Of course, it was the team’s effort that produced this compliment, but we feel grateful for these small successes of our work.
What do you think about the Scrum that ESTL is currently practising? Since we have a lot of different project teams, and each team has some flexibility to implement how they would like to deliver the project, not many of them may follow the Scrum framework exactly.
Ryan: Earlier, it was mentioned that we have different Scrum teams of different flavours. The bottom line is that there is no specific method for success with Scrum. The team has to determine however way of working is effective, even if that means not following traditional practices. For example, if the team decides not to do a Daily Scrum, but to do every alternative day to better fit their team schedule, then we encourage them to do so. The key is for the team to have a sufficient understanding of the problem, and of Scrum, to get started.
Lit Meng: Yes, for example, we have two projects — EduHub, and the Classroom of the Future Experimental Track. EduHub is our first project on Scrum, and we tried to enforce the Scrum processes like Daily Scrum and Sprint Plannings. However, as we progressed, we realised that it is more important to follow the Agile principles of having frequent inspections and adaptability. The goal of the Scrum processes is to inspire and enable the team to adapt as it grows. They may choose to use different methods to achieve this. Hence, while we still implement processes, the main importance is that each Sprint event focuses on three important principles — inspection, adaptation, and transparency. There is no hard and fast rule, and we would not police them. Else, we would probably get fired by the team in no time.
Could you share with us what you most enjoy about your work?
Lit Meng: I like to have conversations with colleagues. I come in and talk to people to understand what they are doing right now. Casual chit chat allows me to understand my teammates’ personalities, and I think that this is in fact very important for my role as a Delivery Manager. When I understand a person’s personality and goals, it helps me align the project goal with the individual I’m working with. Together, we can deliver our goals, and have a great time doing so. Talking to people and getting to know each other excites me everyday when I come to work.
Ryan: Yes, one problem of being a Scrum Master is getting too comfortable within your Scrum team. We call this the Scrum bubble. When we talk to people outside of our team, we learn about the problems of other teams. If these problems sound familiar, we can render some assistance. If they are not, we learn about new challenges outside of our team’s setting, and have a better perspective on the work that we do.
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Thank you, Lit Meng and Ryan, for chatting with us!
To conclude, let’s wrap up today’s conversation with 3 takeaways:
- Delivery Managers in ESTL take on the role of Scrum Masters. Their primary goal is to enable the Scrum team to maximise their potential and deliver value through their products. Unlike traditional Project Managers, who may be more prescriptive in their approach, Scrum Masters cultivate a conducive environment for the team to discover issues and be accountable for any setbacks and successes that they achieve.
- As Scrum Masters, the fruits of their labour are often not immediate. However, Lit Meng and Ryan are encouraged by their small successes, with a long-term goal of driving Agile practices in the larger organisation.
- The Scrum Masters’ main objective is not to enforce a fixed set of processes. Instead, Scrum is adapted based on different teams’ needs. It is about promoting the mindset of being Agile — having frequent inspections, and adapting accordingly.
We hope you’ve learnt something useful from their sharing! If you would like to know more about ESTL and the work we do, head over to our website here for more snapshots of ESTL life.
