Agile Delivery Lead

I don't have any first-hand experience with Capital One and their Agile Delivery Lead role, but I've read their blog post about it and some responses to it.

My interpretation is that it is not a blend of the Scrum Master and Product Owner roles at all, but rather a technical Scrum Master. That is, someone who is not only familiar with the Scrum framework (along with other agile methods and frameworks such as Extreme Programming and Kanban and others), but also someone who has technical knowledge aligned with the Development Teams that they support.

This quote seems to sum up the role best:

Engineers have a lot on their plate, so ADLs set out to keep them focused on writing software by helping to handle ancillary technical tasks beyond coding. This can involve anything from onboarding applications to various tools used for well-managed software delivery, taking the lead on application architecture review processes, preparing various documentation, and even seeking out new opportunities regarding production support and what we call YBYO (you build it, you own it). Let’s be clear though, we are not just swinging the pendulum to the other side and focusing entirely on the technical aspects. In fact, we’ve introduced some added coaching expectations, since at the end of the day, the ADL's primary focus is on helping to create an environment where the engineering teams can deliver high quality, valuable software.

The idea of the Agile Delivery Lead is someone who can take on technical work. Build and deploy tools to help the team facilitate their development process. Assist in writing and updating technical documentation (although I'd hope they'd be following lean and agile approaches to the type of documentation they create). Be an active participant in architecture, design, and code reviews. The person is not someone who is heads down in code, but has a solid grasp of the entire product development life cycle, from initial concept and requirements elicitation all the way through deployment and maintenance. These are things that require knowledge and background in product management, software engineering, software quality assurance, technical writing - skills that some people with a Scrum Master role don't have and aren't technically required to meet the definition as it's presented in the Scrum Guide.

I'd really love to hear first-hand experiences as well. On paper, it seems good. In fact, it's very much aligned with my skills and how I approach my job on a day-to-day basis, although I'm tending to work more at an organizational or program (team-of-teams) level instead of with a particular development team.

I believe that this is a group that is making the change, not all of Cap One is making this change. They are also hiring 176 Scrum Masters.  https://www.capitalonecareers.com/search-jobs/Scrum%20Master/1732/1

Hardly familiar with this ADL thing, but after a skim through, one topic that's concerning to me is having the ADL responsible for the delivery, and in so doing, it pushes it towards a (project) management role.

No tengo experiencia con el tema, pero leyendo al respecto, este rol tiene muchas otras responsabilidades como tomar algunas desiciones de bajo impacto. No es un PO pero el equipo lo ayuda, también puede hacer las propuestas y los prototipos de soluciones(como diseñador/creador). Es una especie de hibrido de Scrum + PO + un poco de arquitecto de soluciones.  No es un project manager, pero podría hacerlo.  

Hay que ver como evoluciones este rol. 

La pregunta es, que hace falta en la cadena de valor? por qué emerge este rol?   

The person is not someone who is heads down in code, but has a solid grasp of the entire product development life cycle, from initial concept and requirements elicitation all the way through deployment and maintenance. These are things that require knowledge and background in product management, software engineering, software quality assurance, technical writing - skills that some people with a Scrum Master role don't have and aren't technically required to meet the definition as it's presented in the Scrum Guide.

Seems to be an almighty superman？

So an Agile Technical Coach in other words.

Took me 16 years to achieve this, learning about:and getting experience in:

1) requirements engineering

2) risk management

3) business analysis

4) software development (Cobol, C#, Javascript)

5) software testing (quality control)

6) IT Service Management

7) DevOps

8) Project Management

9) LEAN

10) Scrum framework

11) Kanban framework

12) eXtreme Programming framework

13) DSDM framework

14) Robot Proces Automation

15) Design Thinking

16) web and mobile design

17). quality assurance (<> quality control)

18) ....the journey continues....

I really want to see how they are going to retrain Scrum Masters into Agile Technical Coaches over a relative short (hopefully at least shorter than my 16 years) timespan, especially when there are a lot of atechnical Scrum Masters in the community.



 

Agile Delivery Leads sounds an awful lot like a Technical Delivery Manager. Many companies are using manager-level staff to play the role of a Scrum Master. In such a case, a Scrum Master goes from trainer and mentor to enforcer. I intentionally didn't mention coach because most people don't know what coaching is all about.