Context of the Technology Delivery Manager Role

Explore the Roles of Lean-Agile
The Lean-Agile Framework offers a diagram that sets the roles in the context of the overall work of Lean-Agile and the value stream.
The Lean-Agile RACI chart is a common representation of the roles and responsibilities and accountabilities of the many roles in involved Lean-Agile and how the Technology Delivery Manager role interacts with other roles.
The Overview of Roles by Level offers a more richer description of the roles involved in the Portfolio, Program, and Team levels and what they do.
A comparison of the Application Development Manager and Technology Delivery Manager roles. These two roles are related. The terms may not be familiar but the responsibilities are.

Related roles

Application Development Manager Role

Most recent posts about TDM

The Net Objectives Guardrails System (9/1/2016)
Using Guardrails to Tie Business to Technology (8/15/2016)
What Is Required at Scale | Effective Agile at Scale (6/23/2014)
An Executive’s Guide to Agile | Effective Agile at Scale (4/22/2014)
Product Portfolio Management: Essential for Agile at Scale (5/30/2012)

The Technology Delivery Manager (TDM) is responsible for managing the delivery of the technology solution of a business increment and the flow and continual delivery of the program or value stream producing it in the shortest cycle time. In SAFe this role is known as the Release Train Engineer (RTE) and has fewer responsibilities than is required. More…

To do this, the Technology Delivery Manager attends to several things at the program level:

Making all significant work activity visible
Improving the work value stream: removing tactical impediments, improving work process for more effective, consistent and sustainable execution, etc.
Understanding the components of the system, how functionality maps to them, and how the system is projected to evolve, so it can manage how it comes together to deliver capability on time (per release roadmap/schedule) and with high integrity
Identifying and managing risks that could affect delivery

Featured resources

Getting started

Begin by reviewing the resources in the Context of the Technology Delivery Manager Role box to understand how the TDM role fits in the context of Lean-Agile. Then work through the Reading Path (guided readings) and library pages that pertain to the role.

The Technology Delivery Manager Reading Path. A general introduction to the Technology Delivery Manager role including responsibilities, standard work, and alternatives for your context.

Going deeper

Here are additional resources to explore related to the Technology Delivery Manager role.

Disciplines and Practices. Technology Deliver Managers should be familiar with the disciplines and practices of Lean-Agile. They should review resources about requirements. If you are using SAFe, see the SAFe library page.

Resource Libraries for the Technology Delivery Manager. This page lists the complete set of resources in the Lean-Agile Portal related to the Technology Delivery Manager role. The Value Stream Levels library collects resources by level. Especially, see the Program Level.

The Technology Delivery Manager in a Transformation

The transformation to Lean-Agile involves everyone. The Technology Delivery Manager is critical in working with leadership and teams as make decisions about how to realize Lean-Agile in their own context. Lean-Agile Thinking guides these decisions so that everyone in the value stream is aligned.

The Net Objectives Guardrails offer general principles to guide decision-making.
The Net Objectives Inflection Point System offers specific support for decisions at the Core (Primary), Core (Secondary), Transition Supportive, and Program Level Supportive.

Explore the Technology Delivery Manager Role