The Chief Delivery Officer's role

The Chief Delivery Officer has a distinctive role amongst other C-suite colleagues, and it's important that we spend some time here looking at the position in the round before progressing into specific areas in the rest of the Handbook.

There's similarities, of course.

The CDO is a domain specialist, like the C-suite peers with Financial (CFO), Marketing (CMO), or Technology (CTO) portfolios, say.

The CDO also affects elements across the whole business, like an Operations (COO) or Data (the other CDO 😉) principal.

But the role of a Chief Delivery Officer stands out for some important and distinctive reasons.

Here we'll explored what those are, why they're important — both for the CDO and for the business — and how they frame the position and function of the CDO in the organisation.

The role of Chief Delivery Officer is a relatively new label for a set of duties and responsibilities in the organisation. Previously these functions might have been handled by someone at a different level in the business who reports, directly or maybe indirectly, to someone at executive level — maybe the Chief Operating Officer, say. Here we are going to examine the case for viewing this position as an executive-level role in itself.

So, what actually is a Chief Delivery Officer? #

We've already set out a definition of the Chief Delivery Officer previously, at the beginning of this Handbook, but it may be useful to reiterate some of that here.

The Chief Delivery Officer (CDO) is a key leadership role.

Normally an executive-level role, the CDO works closely with other leaders in the organisation to align the client delivery strategy with both the business goals and customers' needs.

Let's divide this opening section into two parts.

The Chief Delivery Officer among equals #

The first dimension involves acknowledging that a Chief Delivery Officer is an executive-level role, a peer amongst other C-suite colleagues with a view across and an impact that touches the whole organisation.

A CDO needs to be able to work closely with other leaders in the organisation.

The CDO cannot solve all the problems the business faces, obviously, but that is the precisely remit of the executive team together — to combine the experience and wisdom accumulated in their distinct specialisms to work together to achieve the goals and objectives of the business, and together to overcome the difficulties and challenges presented to the organisation.

The process of delivering products and/or services for the company is a unique component of that effort. Service delivery is a part of the business that clients experience most closely. In some contexts, it's the essential component.

• If you're a service business:
  • service delivery is the cornerstone of your offering
• If you're a product business:
  • all of your customers will experience a form delivery when they buy your product, taking them from the point of purchase to successful users
  • and it's also likely that your biggest and best customers will want some form of professional services wrap-around to your product

In other words, the company's reputation is built on how you deliver for customers.

Service delivery does not sit in sweet isolation, of course. It's a core part of the whole customer journey, but that starts way before services are being delivered in the marketing phase and sales experience. And it continues on afterwards, too, into the live service stage where clients should be successful in using what they've bought, and look to buy more from the business, all being well.

Coherence throughout that customer journey is vital.

• The CDO's delivery strategy and its execution will determine what that customer journey looks like and how it functions.
• The CDO's delivery strategy and its execution will make demands on the marketing and sales process, so that the 'right' customers in the 'right' state are purchasing products and services from the business.
• The CDO's delivery strategy and its execution will define how successfully your customers use your products and services, and whether they come back as continued clients or even but more from you.

In summary, then, the Chief Delivery Officer is the person responsible for how you deliver your services and products. That gives them a distinctive and vital contribution to role to play at the executive level.

Delivery alignment #

The second part here is about the orientation of the company's service delivery, both the strategy and the execution.

There's two areas of focus when deciding how to shape the service delivery:

1. aligned with business goals
2. aligned with customer needs

Note: the term 'customer' is being used in a very broad sense with this second focus, and tucked inside are users — the people who will actually be using the thing being addressed in your delivery project.

These two are distinct from each other, and it's rare to find them parallel let alone convergent. They may even be perpendicular. As a consequence, the role of the CDO requires the ability to hold a creative tension between business goals and customer (and user) needs.

In other words, the CDO will find themselves sitting in a strange in between place, as advocates of both the customer and the business. Balancing those needs, which may often be competing, is a key challenge.

Here's some things to remember:

The customer has bought something

And they should rightly expect something in return

The customer is not always right

Despite the adage, your highest duty is to bring clarity to your clients, to help them achieve the right outcomes — you do that as experts in your field, and you bring that expertise to your delivery

The business has a vision and a direction of travel

What you do for your clients must allow the company to take the next step on the path there

The business doesn't need to get there in one go

The path to the business's goals will be a zigzag route. Some latitude is important — as long as the trend is in the right direction, all good. And there's lots to learn along the way, lots of which could end up being useful for the journey as a whole.

Delivering what? #

So, now it's time to get more specific, taking on the next section of our working definition of a CDO:

A Chief Delivery Officer is responsible for the successful delivery of projects through the entire delivery lifecycle, from discovery, planning and design through execution and onwards into live service and evaluation. This usually means the delivery of a service for customers, commonly in creative and digital agencies or for product or SaaS companies, but could just as well apply in large infrastructure or transformation projects and programs as well.

The CDO is bringing a specific focus to the organisation: delivering for customers.

Of course, the business will already have been doing this for a long time — whether its a service business, where service delivery is the essence of their offer, or a product business where client services are a wrap-around element for their product, the company will not have been able to get to the current place without delivering stuff for customers.

However, the arrival of a Chief Delivery Officer is a signal that the business intends to raise the prominence of its clients' experience — that the customer journey will have a new importance for the organisation, that it's essential to the future of the business. It's a really good sign if the organisation wants to bring customers into the heart of what they do. We'll talk more about the motivations for this elsewhere. For now, though, keep in mind that understanding what motivations are the driving for of this move is really important when you're taking on the role and responsibilities of a Chief Delivery Officer.

That means the CDO is responsible for the whole delivery lifecycle for the company's customers (the actual elements of the lifecycle are outside this current discussion — we'll cover that elsewhere), from one end to another, ensuring coherence, professionalism and agility throughout. That requires a multi-dimensional perspective on what is meant by service or project delivery.

• That means planning and execution
• That means governance, management and steering
• That means quality and standards
• That means metrics and insights
• That means client communication, negotiation, and expectation management
• That means forecasting and financial management
• That means team support and leadership

Yes, you're ensuring work for customers moves smoothly through all the steps, from beginning to successful end. But at every step along that path you need to be able to combine different views. As the CDO, you're building the practices, processes and tools that enable that, all wrapped around with a thoroughgoing professionalism to give coherence to the customer journey.

Foundations for a reputation #

The next part of our working definition of a CDO describes an element that is often overlooked:

More than overseeing delivery, though, the Chief Delivery Officer is the focus point for a customer's experience of the business. Service delivery is often the part of the business that clients experience most closely and, done well, is a foundation stone for an organisation's reputation.

A customer's most direct experience of the business is at the time they are using what it offers. This period is crucial for defining the organisation's reputation.

For a service business, that's most of what they do for their customers. But it's also true for product businesses.

For example:

iPhone users experience of Apple is largely mediated by the device in their hand. But all iPhone users will have wandered into an Apple store at some point or another, and the experience of the Apple store is every bit as significant as the device itself — the minimalist design aesthetic and the way their products are displayed; no pay points, no cash registers; the sheer number of staff on the floor, all knowledgeable, with their own expertise; the support desk is called the Genius Bar; and so on.

These are all part of Apple's service delivery that is wrapped around their products, and they all contribute to an iPhone user's sense to Apple as a company. That service experience is essential to Apple's reputation and every person in those primary-colour t-shirts contributes to that.

This is the realm of the Chief Delivery Officer — what customers experience of the company and how they experience it as they're using it's services.

The professionalism cornerstone #

And now, in the final part of the working definition of a CDO, we look at some of the details and how the CDO brings those details to all work in harmony together:

Consequently, the CDO takes the responsibility for a large part of the customer journey.

They design and execute a delivery strategy that aligns with the company's business goals, operating capabilities, sector and specialisms, and their clients' needs. They lead and support the company's delivery teams — the delivery managers, designers, engineers, consultants, analysts, and so on — making sure they have the training, resources, tools, processes and guidance that results in coherence across the business and enables consistently high-quality outcomes for customers.

What this means in practice is your task.

• You define the delivery processes, from beginning to middle to end
• You set out the elements of the lifecycle (again, more on those elsewhere)
• You choose what happens when at all the steps along the way, and even what names are used for those steps
• You create the tools and toolkits that make it happen
• You support and enable the delivery team to do their best work within that framework
• You set the tenor for how you communicate with clients, with the rest of the business, and with each other
• You set the language, the vocabulary, and the tone of voice
• You determine what to measure, and when, and how
• You choose how that data is used to make decisions about the future of the organisation

This is how you, the Chief Delivery Officer, present a professional experience of the business. This is the framework for service delivery for which you are responsible, and to which you give shape and body. When these components are slick and polished, when they all work together as one coherent whole, then you are doing your best work.

Professionalism across each of these things is how ambitious businesses distinguish themselves from the rest. Although many of the items in this list are oriented internally, these are the how you create and execute a polished and efficient delivery practice. Consequently, externally, customers experience that as professionalism. They will feel able to trust you, which you will be able to give them the clarity and quality they expect in return.

We'll be exploring all of these in greater depths as we progress through the Handbook, of course.