My work in the digital commercial sector has spanned EdTech, retail (including recruitment and fashion), automotive, finance and FMCG.
The need to align the organisation around better delivery practices can arise for many reasons, including
- After a period of investment-led growth
- Following a merger
- Complex change that requires a joined-up approach
- Lack of progress or transparency from delivery teams (perceived or real)
Whatever the source, the request of often articulated as a need to pursue efficiency or ‘agility’, and generally optimise the performance of product and tech teams. It’s my job to make sure the problem we’re working on is clear. This includes seeing what’s happening for myself and getting to know first-hand what the teams are experiencing.
At the team level, I apply coaching, mentoring and training to give teams the tools to look at their processes and improve them continuously. This is when senior management can make a huge difference by demonstrating and reassuring teams they have the permission and support to experiment, fail, learn – and grow. When this happens real change can start, and teams can use their experience to solve the problems they see.
The other key area of my work is setting up the Portfolio-level team (and the required practices) that can bridge the gap between the strategy at Exec-level, and the detail of the work happening at Team-level. This entails creating a summary view of the work and making it visible to all – it can be transformative for strategic alignment, reporting, and collaboration across teams.
In the commercial sector, I have enjoyed many varied roles including
- Agile Coach
- Product Lead
- Business Agility Consultant
- Interim Chief Product Officer
Matt was key in bringing senior stakeholders and the Product & Engineering teams into alignment on the processes and goals of the business. He effortlessly and pragmatically delivers both broad strategic advice and the day-to-day tactics that allow Product Managers to get the important work done. Matt’s the real deal. Highly recommended!
Thomas Eggleton, Product Lead
Work I do
Below is the kind of work or activities I have typically carried out. I have grouped them into the three key markers of my delivery health model.
Teams aligned to the strategy
- Product strategy (short to mid-term, where product strategy is absent)
- Strategic review
- Capability reviews
- Leadership development + coaching
- Quarterly planning
- Portfolio Kanban
- Team structure design for scaled delivery
- Leadership support and coaching
Continuously improving delivery
- Product backlog development
- Improvement activities and events
- Team structures + roles
- Team capability and health assessments
- Scrum / Agile and all ceremonies and artefacts
- Kanban – more commonly with product managers, covering the early stages of the product lifecycle
- Release management processes
- Non-functional test processes
Informed decision-making
- Team-level reporting (velocity, burn up, burn down, lead time, cycle time, output measures, planned vs unplanned, backlog forecasting, relative sizing, rapid estimating)
- Portfolio KPI reporting
- Portfolio roadmap + forecasting
- Jira (or equivalent) administration, and setting up new work-tracking systems
