Get best of the week

The Role of Service Delivery Manager (SDM) in the Kanban Method: How to Hire SDM

I am often asked about the role of Service Delivery Manager (SDM) in Kanban. Who should play this role? How can this role be introduced in an organization? Where to find the right people for this role?

For understanding, SDM is a term that we use in the Kanban method to generically denote a wide range of managers responsible for certain services, production lines or projects. SDM's responsibility is to manage and improve the service in terms of customer satisfaction.

There are a large number of professional services in many companies and industries. As a result, the role of SDM means completely different types and volumes of work, which is manifested in a variety of responsibilities, skills, levels of hierarchy and remuneration. But the responsibility of SDM for certain services is a common characteristic in the whole variety of interpretations. Thus, the pattern has developed. And we use the term SDM as the name for such a pattern.

Chances are good that the right person for the role of SDM is already working in your company. You may need to recognize this responsibility informally or in an official form, increase it, change the name of his position or hire a person from outside. Depending on the organizational culture and history of your company, these options may appear in different proportions.

Next, you will find guidance on the basic steps of finding the right candidates for that role. 

There is no standard vacancy profile, you always need to take into account the specifics of work.

The vacancy profile of a service delivery manager (SDM) will greatly depend on the context of what a particular service delivers. Consider the following examples:

  1. . SDM CEO .
  2. UX- . - SDM.
  3. . c . PoS . , , . SDM.

If you need to hire people for these three positions, you can submit a wide list of different job profiles, evaluation criteria, and search / interview tactics. 
You will have to review a stack of resumes overwhelmed with ITIL certificates, hoping to find at least one Ph.D. in chemistry in the field of analytical chemistry. As soon as you imagine this situation, you will immediately stop looking for an example of an SDM job profile.

Thus, most of the SDM vacancy profile  will be determined by the nature of the service itself . Compliance with the specifics of the service will always be a key condition for selection.

Leadership skills


The next important filter for selection is leadership skills. Why do you need SDM? Perhaps because you need someone who can take responsibility for the service (ML2), make it better, even better (ML3) and support development in this way for a long time (ML4).

(What do these abbreviations ML2, ML3, and ML4 mean? These are the maturity level markers used in the Kanban Maturity Model (KMM). KMM defines maturity levels so that an organization at each level can meet the challenges of a higher order business environment than organizations at less high maturity levels. KMM also offers a roadmap for increasing the current level of maturity of the organization. How to use this as part of the Kanban method? In short, when we design the Kanban system within the business, this system will show the level of maturity of the business itself)

So, the maturity of leaders is a limiting factor in organizational maturity. You will need altruistic qualities to create a collaboration throughout the workflow, to achieve a common understanding of purpose (Einheit) and to make responsible decisions at the points of service obligations. You will not want to hire an individualist of the first maturity level (ML1) or a tribalist (tribal leader) of the second maturity level (ML2) so that such a candidate does not become an obstacle to higher maturity.

Kanban maturity model as a guide to action


The Kanban Maturity Model (KMM) provides a specific set of benchmarks and decision filters. The following are my instructions in a very brief form for each level.

The SDM role is not suitable for ML0 or ML1. If you need to carry out a “digital transformation” on ML0 or ML1, take care not to accidentally fire or forcefully change the professional ideology of those people who you will need in the future as SDM.
The role of SDM appears from the second level of maturity and above. 

For ML2: SDM should be able to take responsibility for the service, define the service, its inputs and outputs in terms of the client, overcome the ossification of the organizational structure, the inertia of command-level tools related to ML1. This is what is required of the candidate, is he able to do such a job? You will not be able to describe this directly in the vacancy profile, but you will need some tactics for conducting an interview to determine the degree of candidate's compliance.

For ML3: pay attention to two great ways to check. The first is negotiation on a commitment point - how well do candidates communicate with clients? The second is the management of risks and delays in delivery after commitments. Can your candidate handle this?

For ML4: You will need organizational feedback loops connecting business results and operational solutions. Which will require the creation of some kind of social canvas to convey information and some degree of mathematical sophistication. People are inherently prone to only one of these two abilities. Find out who you hire

findings


  1. The largest part of the SDM job profile will always be determined by the nature of the service itself. Compliance with the specifics of the service will always be a key criterion for selecting a candidate.
  2. High maturity, altruistic leadership qualities are the key properties of this role.
  3. Use the Kanban Maturity Model (KMM) as a guide to action. Identify more specific SDM qualities based on your organization’s current maturity level.

Many thanks for the translation to Dmitry Orlov

More articles:


All Articles