The Delivery Manager Daily

🚀 New Episode Alert: The Cloud Exodus – Why Companies Are Moving Back On-Premise 🌍💻For years, the cloud was the promised land—scalable, flexible, and cost-effective. But now, the tide is turning. Organizations are reassessing their cloud-first strategies, moving critical workloads back on-premise. Why?In this episode of Delivery Manager Daily, we break down the key drivers behind this shift, including: ⚠️ Unpredictable Cloud Costs – Why “pay-as-you-go” is turning into “pay-more-than-you-planned.” 🔐 Security & Compliance Risks – Are cloud environments truly as secure as we thought? ⏳ Outages & Downtime – When your entire operation depends on a third party, how much control do you really have?Join me, Mario De’Cristofano, as we explore the reality behind this growing trend. Featuring expert insights and practical strategies, we’ll discuss whether on-premise is making a comeback—and what it means for agile delivery managers navigating this complex landscape.📢 Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't miss this critical discussion! 🎙️ #DeliveryManagerDaily #CloudComputing #OnPremise #TechTrends

This episode is jam PACKED with information if your a new CS graduate, or wanting to get into the Digital Delivery Manager game in 2025, the things I would do if I were starting fresh. You may want to listen to the episodes below too, as they are all linked & I really hope you enjoy this one. Getting interviews for DM roles & how to do well (here)How to become a DM (here)The skills you need to be a DM (here)Take care

In this episode I wanted to talk about two things;Hybrid working - can you effectively do Scrum with new Scrum teams on new projects? This question came about after my talk at Keele, & I thought it was a great question & one which needed unpacking a bit.Running a good kick of meeting (or any meeting) Hands up how many meetings are you in that are an utter disaster? Try of course doing that hybrid or remote & you can be almost guaranteed to fail - I briefly explain the five things I do to help run the very best meetings.Step One: Know Your PurposeBefore you even send the invite, ask yourself: What is this meeting actually for? If your answer is "because we always do a kickoff,” start again.A great kickoff meeting does three things:It aligns the team on goals, scope, and approach.It builds relationships and sets expectations.It uncovers potential risks early.If your agenda isn’t doing these things, rethink it.Step Two: Get the Right People in the RoomOne of the worst mistakes? Inviting everyone because you don’t want anyone to feel left out. That’s how you end up with a meeting where half the people are checking emails and the other half are confused.Here’s who should be in the room:The key decision-makers—Product Owner, Delivery Manager, Tech Lead.The core delivery team—engineers, designers, testers, analysts.Key business stakeholders who need to understand the project direction.Anyone else? Optional or async. Keep it lean, keep it focused.Step Three: Set the Tone with Energy, Not SlidesNobody wants to sit through a 40-slide deck on “Why This Project is Important.” Instead, open with energy. Be clear, be concise.I like to start with three things:The Why: Why are we doing this project? Who does it benefit? Why does it matter?The What: What are we actually delivering? When? What does success look like?The How: How are we working? Agile? Scrum? Kanban? What’s expected of the team?If you can’t explain these things in under five minutes, your project is already in trouble.Step Four: Get People Talking—FastThe best kickoff meetings aren’t monologues, they’re conversations. Get the team talking as soon as possible.Here are a few great ways to do that:Ask the team: What excites you about this project? What concerns you?Run a mini Futurespective: If this project is a disaster in six months, why?Map out early risks and dependencies together.Engagement isn’t about hearing information, it’s about owning it.Step Five: End with Action, Not AbstractionA weak kickoff ends with “So yeah, let’s get started.” A strong kickoff ends with clear next steps.Summarize in three bullet points:What’s happening this week? (First sprint, onboarding, requirements deep-dive?)Who’s doing what? (Lead engineer setting up repos, BA refining backlog, etc.)What does success look like by next check-in?End with clarity. No open loops.

SKIP to approx 17 minutes in for PRACTICAL ADVICE if you're a computer science student, but I was recently asked off the back of a Keele University talk on Agile how I got to do what I'm doing, so I thought I'd record an episode all about it. As always, thanks for listening, please subscribe & share the podcast with your mates who may be interested in this kind of stuff too. Mx

In this episode & accompanying blog post, I talk about why being too nice at work can be a problem, especially if you're an Agile leader (or leader of any description). As I've built up my leadership experience over the years to now consider myself 'not too shabby' I wanted to just pick at the edges of a few problems I see at work/client sites & what you can do about it to be better. As always thanks for listening.

In this episode I talk about why after reading a new stat from engprax that a lot of projects were failing due to Agile & even John Kern, one of the Manifesto's forefathers is having 'one last go to try & get people to understand' I think too I could be done with Agile unless, well, you'll have to listen to the podcast won't you! :)As always thanks for listening, join the debate on X (@mariodc, @dm_daily) Blue sky & subscribe & click the bell icon, so you get notified of every new release each week. Mx

In this episode I talk on the notion of digital sustainability, what it is, & why you should care about it as a DM. We're not talking here about running an EV, or recycling, we're talking about what to consider to make your digital products & services more digitally sustainable. I talk about it here on the blog And also, some useful links below'https://carbonagile.com/https://medium.com/@mariodecristofano/doing-the-calculations-65569703760ahttps://medium.com/@mariodecristofano

In this episode I talk about why I think you may not understand software engineering like you think you do. You can't go & extrapolate from a slice of the discipline to the whole of software engineering, simply it to the point of bastardisation & then expect teams to build good product, can you? Join me & my mate Mark from the pub. Read more about it here https://www.mariosblog.co.uk/you-just-dont-understand-software/

In this episode I talk about the things I think you should do, a top 5 list, of when you're brand new to a project, all the things to consider when you're a Delivery Manager or project manager. Take a listen, read the associated blog post https://www.mariosblog.co.uk/top-5-things-you-need-to-do-in-your-first-week-on-a-new-project/ & let me know what you think. M