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Programme delivery manager

Find out what a programme delivery manager in government does and the skills you need to do the role at each level.

Last updated 30 August 2022 — See all updates

Contents

What a programme delivery manager does

A programme delivery manager is accountable for the delivery of complex products and services that are being delivered by multiple teams or have high technical or political risk.

Programme delivery manager role levels

There is one programme delivery manager role level.

The typical responsibilities and skills for this role level are described below. You can use this to identify the skills you need to progress in your career, or simply to learn more about each role in the Government Digital and Data profession.

1. Programme delivery manager

A programme delivery manager is accountable for the delivery of complex products and services that are delivered by multiple teams or have high technical or political risk.

At this role level, you will:

  • manage dependencies of varying complexity, potentially planning and feeding into larger programmes and portfolios
  • remove blockers and manage risks, commercials, budgets and people
  • balance objectives and redeploy people and resources as priorities change
  • have an in-depth knowledge of Agile and other methodologies
  • be responsible for understanding, managing and communicating to complex stakeholder groups, balancing priorities
  • be the initial escalation point for the programme
  • have an awareness of the bigger picture
  • support the programme director by overseeing the delivery of their vision for the programme
  • support and coach delivery managers

This role level is often performed at the Civil Service job grade of:

  • G7 (Grade 7)
  • G6 (Grade 6)
Skill Description

Agile and Lean practices

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices
  • act as a recognised expert and advocate for the approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team
  • create or tailor new ways of working, and constantly innovate

Commercial management

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • act as the escalation point and resolve large or high risk commercial management issues
  • coach others in appropriate commercial management

Communicating between the technical and non-technical

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • mediate between people and mend relationships, communicating with stakeholders at all levels
  • manage stakeholder expectations and moderate discussions about high risk and complexity, even within constrained timescales
  • speak on behalf of and represent the community to large audiences inside and outside of government

Community collaboration

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • solve and unblock issues between teams or departments at the highest level
  • understand the psychology of the team and have strong mediation skills
  • coach the organisation on team dynamics and conflict resolution, while also building and growing the community

Financial management

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • influence or create complex budgets across an organisation, programme or product view
  • manage the budget you are given and make it work

Life cycle perspective

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • successfully lead teams through the full product life cycle
  • identify which tools and techniques should be used at each stage
  • develop sustainable support models
  • identify and deal with potential risks across or between all stages of the product life cycle
  • coach others
  • contribute to the assessment of other teams, providing guidance and support as they move through stages of the product life cycle

Maintaining delivery momentum

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • optimise the delivery flow of teams
  • actively address the most complicated risks, issues and dependencies including where ownership exists outside the team or no clear ownership exists
  • identify innovative ways to unblock issues

Making a process work

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • identify and challenge organisational processes of increasing complexity and those processes that are unnecessarily complicated
  • add value and can coach the organisation to inspect and adapt processes
  • guide teams through the implementation of a new process

Planning

Level: expert

Expert is the fourth of 4 ascending skill levels

You can:

  • lead a continual planning process in a very complex environment
  • plan beyond product delivery
  • identify dependencies in plans across services and co-ordinate delivery
  • coach other teams as the central point of expertise
Role Shared skills
Delivery manager

Agile and Lean practices

Commercial management

Communicating between the technical and non-technical

Financial management

Life cycle perspective

Maintaining delivery momentum

Making a process work

Planning
Graphic designer

Communicating between the technical and non-technical

Community collaboration
Interaction designer

Communicating between the technical and non-technical

Community collaboration
Service designer

Communicating between the technical and non-technical

Community collaboration
Analytics engineer

Communicating between the technical and non-technical

Updates

Published 7 January 2020

Last updated 30 August 2022

30 August 2022

  • The ‘communication skills’ skill has been renamed ‘communicating between the technical and non-technical’ to ensure consistency across the DDaT Profession Capability Framework.

7 January 2020

  • First published.