Before we dive in on how to find your recipe, a little bit of context setting on how we got to talk about delivery secret sauces in the first place…

Technology delivery today is a complex problem by nature. When technology, or more specifically computers, became integral to corporations’ success in the 60’s with them came increased complexity and the need to codify the approach to provide control. Enter Waterfall approaches like the Software development lifecycle (SDLC) a structured largely sequential model that helped countless organisations deliver outcomes for their customers.

Through the 80’s and 90’s delivery models appeared as an alternate to the SLDC. Delivery complexity was increasing with the growth of systems and software, businesses wanted speed to market, less big, failed projects and the voice of the customer became louder.

Structured System Analysis & Design Method (SSADM) appeared in the UK, although highly structured it brought codified processes to breakdown work into chunks. Rapid Application Development (RAD) provided quick feedback through prototyping and iterative development. Unified Process (UP), XP Extreme Programming (XP), Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM) & Scrum, also emerged. All challenging the Waterfall approach by providing alternate ways to deliver software and ultimately business and customer value.

In 2001 the Manifesto for Agile Software Development was born, bringing together many of these alternate approaches into a set of principles and values about how work can be done. It required an alternate mindset to what most had been taught about how to ‘do delivery’. People, collaboration, working software and the ability to change were called out as most important factors over the structure and unpersonal nature of waterfall delivery.

Over the last 25 years Agile has gained increasing recognition that its principles lead to better outcomes, and most importantly better experiences for all those involved in delivery.

Sorted then, no need to worry about how delivery should be done… just do Agile!

However, things are rarely that simple, particularly when it comes to the delivery of change. This is especially tricky for most humans because Agile is not a methodology that can be followed step-by-step. It’s a mindset, a set of principles and values. At most it provides a broad framework, and it doesn’t say you shouldn’t write documentation, follow tools or processes, negotiate contracts or follow a plan – it’s just that these 4 things shouldn’t take over from the human aspects of Agile – it’s principles, values and mindset.

Obviously, this is not the first time this has been called out, these last 25 years have seen a proliferation of Agile Scaling methodologies all attempting to codify and sell the Agile way, countless consultancies profess to be able to ‘make you agile’ and deliver more for less cost! The word Agile itself has become a no-no, because its image has been tarnished by a misunderstanding of what it is and its intent, and it’s an easy target when people demand certainty!

Even now we can only really talk about agile (small ‘a’) and mostly not in front of anyone who’s had aforementioned experience of the, ‘we will make you agile’ gang.

For those of us who have been around delivery long enough and sat through enough PowerPoint packs and received the laminates, you’ll know that there is no silver bullet to delivery, but there is a way to build a recipe for delivery success through your own secret sauce without getting into an academic debate about to agile (or not).

So, what do we, at GiveMore think are the right ingredients? Below are what we believe to be the key factors that need to be considered and addressed if you want to establish a sustainable delivery model.

Identify the ‘what’ – What it is that you are delivering? The work itself will define who you need and how to deliver it. A bottom-up, new platform build, which impacts the breadth of the organisation is a very different problem to solve than an established area of the business that needs incremental change to meet certain objectives. It’s not that the latter is easy, it’s more that the work itself will be different and therefore the constraints and approach will be too. Get the right people involved to identify and challenge the stated outcomes, unpack the work, its relative priority and the sequence it needs to be done to meet the outcomes. Think about the work end-to-end (value streams) across technology platforms, business teams and customers and avoid breaking it down into silos that can create an ‘us and them’ culture.

Get the right people – Especially in leadership roles. People will be the best and most difficult aspect of your recipe to get right. Finding the right people won’t be easy but look at it from several angles.

• Mindset and problem solving: We all have different personality types, so it’s important to identify people who will find a way to get an outcome. They need to be able to do the job they are there to do but also be willing to help others to be successful, whilst ‘leaning-in’ to solve challenges that emerge.
• Skills and Experience: Having the right combination of qualifications and practical experience is foundational. Understand your delivery needs; is the program simple or complex? For straightforward delivery programs, the most highly technical and experienced person may not always be the best fit.
• Resilience: Find people who can operate in your organisations culture whilst maintaining the resilience needed to deal with the inevitable challenges of delivery. You need to find people internally and externally who can adapt and find ways to get the right things done with people across your organisation

Leadership – Strong leadership is essential, you need to build a cohesive group of leaders who can challenge each other in a respectful manner, who constantly strive to achieve the best possible outcomes, and face into problems. Challenges are inevitable. Having team members who can work together to solve problems is crucial to removing barriers and keeping things on track. This is especially true for your leaders, you want people who will lead and help others be successful, not managers who direct and err away from understanding the work itself.

Take the blame out when things don’t go to plan and create feedback loops so you can adjust practices, whilst having an environment where it’s okay to ask for help. This needs to be backed up, whereby if someone asks for help, they will get it. There’s nothing worse than being provided lip-service when you feel like you’re drowning. Delivery is hard, celebrate the successes and failures, after all we are only human.

Sponsorship – Whoever is ultimately accountable for the outcome of the work, needs to be more than a name. They need to be visible, championing the work, and fighting for it against all the factors that might make it unsuccessful. Good sponsorship will make or break a delivery, a sponsor who is willing to face into the most difficult of choices and act in a balanced, factual and political neutral manner, will gain the trust of the team and the organisation even if the choices at the time feel impossible.

Often, sponsors can’t be chosen but think hard about getting the right person to back the targeted outcomes and the team. If they’re not the sponsor they need to be, work out your plan so they can operate in the way you need them to, otherwise you’ll find yourself constantly fighting the tide.

Provide rhythm, control and real-time information – No two deliveries are the same, so it’s important to avoid jumping straight into picking a framework or methodology. Look at what has/hasn’t worked in your environment in the past, figure out the reasons. Seek advice from your peers and people you trust. Above all, consider the constraints that you can’t control, as you’ll need to have a plan to manage them. This could be any number of things, including your organisations current way of working, funding constraints, current team capability or capacity.

Whatever framework you chose – whether it’s an ‘off the shelf’ packaged scaled agile model, scrum, a tailored system of work or something else – make sure you are constantly inspecting how you work and make time to adjust things, so they work better. Be pragmatic, if you find ways to do things more effectively – do it, even if it goes against what you have previously done or been taught. You need to have repeatable, consistent ways of doing things – this will provide the team and stakeholders a constant in what will be a highly complex environment. This will be invaluable when there will be so many moving parts and will help simplify the complexity.

Make sure you have mechanisms built into the delivery model that provide the right information to the right people in a way that it cannot be ignored. This means you need to be measuring the right things and provide relevant data so it can be turned into the right information by the right people. It can be simple things like issue management – long lag times from identification to resolution can kill deliveries. Another good example are metrics that provide the right information to understand your delivery flow.

Don’t forget to make it clear to people how you’re going to work. Keep communicating, pick common lexicon that will resonate and be trigger reminders of how you work together and get things done. The important thing to note here is that simply taking a pack and telling people to ‘work like this’ won’t cut it, you’ll need to lead them on that learning journey yourselves – walk the walk & talk the talk.

It’s not just the delivery teams you’ll need to explain how you work but also all those who have a stake in the game, especially if you work in an organisation where traditional top-down management practices dominate. Tread carefully here, if this is the case, you’ll need to make sure your sponsor has got your back before you tackle this one.

Automate, automate, automate… Humans are humans, we make mistakes. Build quality into your delivery model as part of your definition of done and automate as much testing as you can handle. Build it into your deployments. You will save countless months of effort and elapsed time, and you’ll leave a legacy you’ll be thanked for.

Find your most common processes and practices, look at how you might benefit from Generative AI or potentially Agentic AI to maximise flow across delivery. AI capabilities will continue to evolve. More and more aspects of delivery will be transformed, embrace the opportunity but don’t assume that it will be the silver bullet (at least not yet) to getting delivery done.

Over the last decade, we’ve honed our take on a ‘secret sauce’. The simple answer is one size doesn’t fit all. The longer more valuable answer is learning to bring together these ingredients, being prepared to not always get things right, rather to experiment and adjust. This way you will learn to blend the right elements to make delivery successful for customers and the people who pride themselves on the work they do.