What is the difference between a Product Manager and a Delivery Lead in continuous discovery and delivery teams?

Every product team faces two fundamental high-level tasks: product discovery and delivering that product to market. So, when talking about the delivery lead role and the product manager role in Agile teams, the product manager's (PM) primary job is product discovery, while the delivery lead's (also known as a delivery manager) primary job is product delivery (though each participates in both processes). 

Both discovery and delivery happen in parallel, so we need to define these two roles as part of continuous discovery and delivery.

It seems clear enough, but after years of experience providing UI/UX design services as part of numerous product teams, we can state that most companies still use a process that is essentially waterfall (even if they call it Agile), where discovery is only the first step of product development. This approach leads to many products failing, and here's why.

What's wrong with how most companies organize their product development process?

In most organizations, regardless of size, the product development process looks something like this:

• The company gets ideas from stakeholders, business owners, or customers. 
• Then ideas are prioritized and a roadmap is created. But to prioritize, you first need to build a business case for each product to know the value it will bring and how much money or time it will require. Based on this information, a roadmap is built. 
• Then the product manager selects the highest-priority item and discusses it with stakeholders to develop a concept and create a list of "requirements" (user stories). User stories are needed to communicate to designers and engineers what needs to be built.
• After the company defines the requirements, it asks the design team to visualize the idea through UI/UX design (if the company even decides to hire a design team).
• Then engineers receive the requirements and design specs to implement the idea (this is where Agile comes in, as engineers typically split the work into sprints to build and test the idea in parallel).
• If QA testing is not included in these sprints, then the QA team performs additional testing to ensure the new concept works as intended.
• Finally, after QA approves the implemented idea, it is deployed and presented to real customers.

This process hardly resembles Agile and is the cause of many problems:

• It takes a very long time for the idea to reach real customers. 
• Roadmaps risk turning into a list of features that different departments want to implement (and chances are, at least half of those ideas won't work as expected).
• The product manager turns into a project manager who just gathers requirements and passes them to developers.
• The company cannot get the full benefit of UX design because designers get involved too late (if at all).
• A similar problem exists with developers. Although they can make a big contribution to product innovation, in many companies engineers are only required to write code and get involved in the product development process very late. 

Customer approval of the product comes too late. As a result, companies invest time and money in activities that don't actually benefit them.
What's the way out of this situation? The process of product discovery and delivery must happen in parallel and continuously. In strong product teams, product managers, design

Now let's define the roles of the product manager and the delivery lead from the perspective of continuous product discovery and delivery.

How the product manager and delivery lead fit into continuous discovery and delivery

First, let's look at what these two processes should look like.

The product discovery process aims to distinguish good ideas from bad ones and, as a result, allow the team to have an approved product backlog. A key component of the product discovery process is close collaboration between product management, user experience design, and engineering teams. Before building a solution, these specialists work together and run experiments to eliminate risks by finding answers to the following questions:

• Will people be willing to use this solution and pay for it?
• Is it technically possible to create this solution/feature?
• Will the software/functionality be simple enough for people to use?
• Will stakeholders support this concept?

When the team has evidence that the idea they're about to implement is sufficiently valuable from the customer's perspective and technically feasible, it's time to implement it.

The goal of product delivery is to create and release high-quality technology solutions that people will buy and the business will benefit from. Continuous delivery allows teams to produce products/features in short cycles, ensuring their reliable release at greater speed and frequency.

Continuous discovery and delivery mean that the team performs all the above activities weekly as part of their regular duties. These processes cover everything—from determining whether enough consumers want the solution to developing effective products that benefit both customers and the business. Thus, time spent on serious research positively impacts development, and that's exactly how companies should work.

Continuous discovery and delivery work especially well for product-oriented companies, as they tend to focus only on those products/features that bring the most value to the end user.

We best experienced this link between discovery and delivery when working as remote designers on Haven Diagnostics, software that assesses the risk of disease spread in offices. Before building the product, they wanted to know who their users were. Our designer constantly communicated with the CEO (who also served as PM) and an engineer, discussing their vision, expectations, and brainstorming design ideas to shape the final product. The best concepts were then tested with users.

During the brainstorming session, we jointly came up with ideas on how to improve calculation accuracy and better tailor results to specific customer needs. Although this procedure did not directly involve design, it affected the backend and improved product quality.

Within the two continuous processes, there are many tasks the team must perform daily. The product manager and delivery lead must help the team and ensure it creates what customers and the business need.

Role and responsibilities of the product manager

Let's start with the product manager's role as the one most involved in the discovery process.

A good product manager is one who best aligns with defining the scope, product vision, target audience, and problems the product should solve. These people serve as the voice of customers for the entire organization. Thus, in traditional project management, the PM's task is to ensure that the development team has a product worth building. 

Here is a list of their main responsibilities:

• Collecting feedback from users (preferably from direct sources such as comments in self-service systems, Customer Success Team, etc.). 
• Categorize requests into specific ideas and topics so the company can track the number of requests for each.
• Inform customers that an issue has been resolved so they feel heard.
• Deeply analyze product data to understand the true picture and recognize patterns.
• Identify users who interact with relevant product elements and study them in depth.
• Conduct generative interviews to help the team understand what data cannot explain.
• Encourage customers to share their experiences to create full context.
• Come up with multiple solutions and test them to see which best leads to the desired outcome.
• Try different solutions on different segments to understand if they solve the problem in a desired and convenient way.
• Choose the best option through comparison and ensure the solution solves a real problem.
• Share with the development team not only the "what" but also the "why" so they can make decisions that better align with customer needs.
• Together with developers, present the product to small test groups to collect feedback and usage data.
• As the release improves, conduct testing on additional consumer segments.

By the way, most of the actions described above are performed in collaboration between the product manager and the UX designer.

Role and Responsibilities of the Delivery Leader

Many product managers in growing companies are overwhelmed with project management tasks, which distracts them from their core responsibilities. That's where delivery managers come in.

Delivery Manager is a project leader who bears the greatest responsibility for timely delivery of the product while meeting standards and quality. Their main task is to accelerate the development team by removing obstacles that may arise during development. To do this, delivery leaders may communicate with the marketing department, delivery leaders from other teams, designers, etc.

Delivery Leader is a role, not necessarily a separate position in the organization. Very often, delivery leaders hold the position of Scrum Master, Project Manager, or Program Manager. It doesn't matter what you call this person, as long as someone performs the work.

Here is what delivery leaders do on a regular basis:

• Track and remove obstacles, manage risks and dependencies.
• Determine optimal team structure and allocate people to product delivery teams.
• Ensure regular delivery of projects and products in accordance with Agile methodology.
• Facilitate continuous iterations.
• Maintain contact between the founder and the team.
• Mentor QA and Tech leads.
• Facilitate and lead key Agile ceremonies such as stand-ups, sprint planning, backlog grooming, and retrospectives.
• Maintain project schedules and budgets.
• Foster an atmosphere of collaboration, creativity, and efficiency within the team.

In summary, the role of the delivery leader is aimed at helping the team move projects forward faster — not by yelling at them, but by removing obstacles.

How to Know If I Need to Hire a Product Manager, a Delivery Manager, or Both?

If we talk about the need

Regarding the necessity of hiring a product manager, the short answer is: "Yes, this specialist is needed in your team." Product managers are primarily responsible for the success of the product, delivering a clear vision and strategy to users, so they play a crucial role in the product development process. In small companies, the role of product manager is often filled by CEOs, founders, etc.

As for the delivery manager, as we have already mentioned, they may hold the title of Scrum Master, project manager, or program manager. If your organization does not have a delivery manager (regardless of their title), this function is often performed by the product manager or engineering managers. And for small startups, this is perfectly acceptable. However, if your company has more than five product teams, we would strongly recommend hiring both a product manager and a delivery lead.

Ultimately, everything depends on the structure of the product development team and what works best for each specific project.