#171 | Building Capability in Delivery Teams: Where to Start (and What to Avoid)

When decisions stall, frameworks bloat, and teams start spinning—it’s not always a process problem. It’s often a capability gap.

In this practical and insight-rich episode, I reframe how real delivery capability gets built—not through endless training or new tooling, but by aligning people, processes, and tools in a way that actually works across hybrid teams and operational realities.

I unpack a three-part capability playbook that’s designed for today’s fast-moving, budget-conscious environment. From adaptive governance that gives teams the confidence to decide faster, to predictable cadences that replace chaos with calm, to change agility that helps teams pivot through volatility without losing traceability. This is capability that enables delivery, not delays it.

You’ll hear examples from real transformations that halved decision latency, replaced performance reviews with learning rituals, and embedded uplift into business-as-usual through milestone retros. I also call out common traps to avoid like throwing tools at symptoms, overmeasuring activity, or launching into training before observing real friction.

Whether you're leading a PMO, managing delivery teams, or navigating cross-functional change, this episode offers a clear path to capability uplift that actually sticks.

🎧 Tune in, take notes, and explore how you can pilot your own capability uplift using our Capability in a Box product suite—including persona mapping, CIAB cards, and more.

In this episode, I cover: 

00:39 Defining Capability Beyond Skills

02:03 People, Process, and Tools Explained

03:21 Why Training Waves Failed 

05:33 Overloaded Operations and PM Support 

06:13 Market Pressures and Constraints 

10:51 Core Capability Focus Areas

And more...

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Purpose
• 0:39 Defining Capability Beyond Skills
• 2:03 People, Process, And Tools Explained
• 3:21 Why Training Waves Failed
• 5:33 Overloaded Operations And PM Support
• 6:13 Market Pressures And Constraints
• 10:51 Core Capability Focus Areas
• 11:23 Adaptive Governance And Decision Confidence
• 16:19 Delivery Discipline And Predictable Cadence
• 18:58 Change Agility In Volatile Environments
• 21:25 Where To Start: Friction And Signals
• 23:13 What To Avoid: Myths And Traps
• 26:05 Embedding Capability Into BAU
• 30:05 Recap And Next Steps
• 32:55 Pilot Workshop Invitation And Closing

Transcript

Fatimah Abbouchi: 0:00

You're listening to Agile Ideas the Podcast, hosted by Fatimah Abbouchi. For anyone listening out there not having a good day, please know there is help out there. Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Agile Ideas. I'm Fatima, CEO at AMO, Mental Health Ambassador, and your host. In today's episode, which is a solo episode, we're going to be diving into a topic that every delivery leader wrestles with. And that is how do we build capability in our delivery teams? Where do we start and what do we avoid? I'm going to talk about why this matters now, the core capability areas that we should focus on, where to start, what to avoid, and then how we embed capability into BAU, business as usual, also known as operations, depending on what your company refers to it as. So let's get started and first and foremost, understand what I mean when I say uh understand what I mean by building capability. And before we get into the how, let's clarify the what. So when we talk about building capability, what do we really mean? Are we talking about project delivery capability? That is what is often the people leading the programs, the projects, the PMOs, or are we talking about the operational teams, which I refer to, also known as BAU or business as usual? And that includes functions like HR, finance, risk, marketing, sales, and so on. These are the people who make delivery possible that often go behind the scenes and go unnoticed. The truth is, when I'm thinking about building capability in delivery teams, it is really both. The reason for this is if your operational teams can't flex and support project delivery or program delivery, or your project and program delivery teams can't adapt and make decisions confidently, then you'll always have a capability gap, even if everyone is technically qualified. The other thing is when I think about capabilities, often capabilities is assumed that it is about the individuals and their skills or their experiences. But when I talk about capabilities and when AMO talks about capability and capability in a box, which is a product that we we've developed, we're referring to the people, the processes, and the tools. And the tools does not necessarily mean technology, although that is included. It could be anything. Frameworks, models, software, um, you name it, it's included in that tool side of things. So when I'm talking about capabilities and capability gaps, I'm referring to people, process and/or tools. I've seen organizations spend millions of dollars on frameworks and training programs, but the problem is it's not the delivery teams themselves that aren't successful in the um the in successful in the outputs of delivery as it stands on its own. What is actually the key that I find after all this money is invested, or supposedly invested, is it doesn't matter how efficient or effective you think your project, your program, or what your delivery is. As I said, when you think about things such as the agile ways of working wave over the last several years, there was so much money thrown at training programs and coaching and frameworks and all of these things. But what was actually lacking in many of these transformations was capability and decision flow. That is the good governance needed. And we're going to talk about adaptiveness and governance in a moment. So, in this episode today, I'm going to talk to you about where to start based on my experience in this last 20 years, what to avoid, and what are some of the challenges I've seen, and then how to build delivery capability operationally and in your projects and programs that actually lasts without overwhelming your already stretched teams. And I just want to give a quick example. Often when we spend time talking about projects and programs that we're delivering or that we're supporting, what people don't realize is when you think about the operational teams that you need to leverage for your projects and programs. Let's just say Project Manager A is leveraging assistance and support or subject matter expertise from a salesperson or a marketing person or the HR team or the internal audit team, whatever teams internally operationally. That's just one project reaching out to those individuals. And then you multiply that by the multitude of projects that are going on in an organization at any single time. And what you find is you're stretching and overwhelming existing teams who already stretched and overwhelmed. And these operational people end up having to do all of this on the side of their desk. This became even more prevalent for me in a recent engagement that I had delivered, where AMO was brought in to provide program management as a service, and through that were able to leverage over 90% operational team members, that is their existing staff, rather than front loading with dozens of consultants and contractors. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm a consultant and I know we can add a lot of value, but also there's sometimes where the wrong capability is not present, or there is inefficiency and ineffectiveness, and therefore you end up needing more resources and more resources and more resources, and that in fact compounds the problem. So let me take you into why this matters now. Right now, I think a lot of organizations are talking about capability uplift. There is uh organizations that are launching uh their own internal academies, and there is PMOs that are scaling their capabilities and their services. There's organizations doing new operating models, and transformations are becoming more fashionable. But most are still struggling to deliver consistently. And I can say this because as a career contractor and a consultant over the last 10 years, I've had the opportunity to work now, more recently in the last 10 years, with over 30 different organizations of all sizes and scales, from startup to multinationals to international organizations, everything from your ASX 100 right down to your mom and pop store. So what I've noticed, and I'm noticing still is that the environment around us is changing. There is a lot of hybrid work. There's still residual remote work from home, um, different styles of working in different organizations. Budgets are leaner because organizations are trying to invest more in AI and therefore eliminating uh roles and functions. There is conflicting priorities. Some of the organizations are struggling with new regulatory requirements, like those providing payment acquiring services and similar, where they'll be required to secure new licenses under Australian law. There's teams that are just overwhelmed and constantly under pressure to deliver. And yet, in all of my last 10 years as a consultant in AMO, I haven't really seen how we've equipped people with adaptive capability to thrive in that environment. I've learned that capability gaps themselves rarely live in just process. As I mentioned before, it's people, process, and tools. So, therefore, then when we think about the people side, it's how do these people, like you and me, apply the processes, but then how we also think about it, how we decide, how we adapt when things don't go to plan. I've worked in teams that their governance was perfect on paper. They spent millions of dollars on frameworks and portfolio structures and cadences, and everything looks great on paper, but no one felt confident making decisions without executive approval. Sometimes for lack of awareness of what they can and can't do, and other times because of fear. It's not a process problem, it's a capability problem. I'll give you an example. Uh, working with the local council as an as one example, where they invested significantly in having a big name consulting firm come in and provide them with a transformation program framework. Now that's all well and good, but what was delivered, not surprisingly, was over the top for what they needed. And they didn't have a framework gap problem. They had a people capability problem. People didn't feel confident making decisions, executives were very micromanaging, there was no clarity around what happened where. There was some dead weight in terms of process, it was just absolutely chaotic. And so you can have the best governance on paper, but it's not going to drive the outcomes and the results you need. And the other thing is we talked about process rather and people. When we think about tools, there is so much waste when it comes to tools in organizations. And not leveraging tools that already exist in your organization that you have licenses for just compounds the problem. So this matters now because we've got all of these factors. We've got the regulatory space, the hybrid work, teams under pressure with new transformations, AI is coming into the conversation more and more. There is so much happening. And it is just really, really important that we are focused and driving adaptive capability. So now that we've talked about why this matters, let's cover off the core capability areas to focus on. Now, when I think about core capability areas, there is a very, very broad set of capabilities that I could talk to. And there's many that matter, but I'm just going to focus on three areas of focus that come up constantly with clients of all sizes, and they are relevant now, and they have been every single point in the last 10 years and 20 as an independent contractor. So let's cover the first one. So the first one is adaptive governance, also can be referred to as decision confidence. This isn't about adding more governance and structure and labor-intensive process, but it's about making it smarter and more flexible so that people have the confidence to make the decisions they need to make and able to do that in the way the right way, but also organizations having the trust that decisions are going to be made in the right way without having to feel like they have to micromanage it. When we think about adaptive governance, it's about helping teams to be more confident in the decisions they're making in real time and not necessarily waiting a month for a steering committee. And this is why, if I think about some recent programs, we were really clear on what the steering committee's expectations, role, and charter, as well as delegation of authority was, so that we didn't have to wait a month for decisions. Otherwise, the program, no wonder they go for three years, four years, five years, these transformation programs, because people don't have the confidence to make decisions and move forward. Not only that, I was speaking to an executive at a recent engagement as well who said, I don't mind decisions being made. I just need to understand that people are aware of the consequence and impact of a certain decision. And I only need to be across those that are of high impact and high consequence. That makes absolute perfect sense. And adaptive governance can really help teams be more confident in the decisions they're making in real time. So what this might look like is clarity around who owns what decisions and when escalation is really needed. Now, you're probably listening to this saying, well, we have a racy, or which, you know, for some people that may be listening and don't know what that is, it's an overview of who's responsible, accountable, consulted, and informed. And there's different variations of that. But the part that's more important is not just who owns what decisions. One, we've needed to find the the what, because there is decisions that are as broad and as shallow, depending on the organization, the maturity, the context, the people. What's more important is the escalation. When is escalation really needed? And understanding and creating some use case examples early on can really help to provide that decision confidence. The second thing is scaling oversight based on the risk and not red tape. So, as I was just giving an example of a recent client engagement, they felt that through one phase of the program that was running around them, that there were decisions being being driven up the line. And they were not really focused or based on risk. They were actually not of a high impact or high consequence. And so they felt at times they were being brought into things that they didn't need to be brought into. So we need to make sure that we also have a way to provide visibility on the decisions that are being made and that those decisions have been recorded so that there is a reference to that point, but also not bogging people down with lots and lots of red tape. And then also giving teams permission to adapt within certain guardrails rather than playbooks. The problem with you know your large, complex governance frameworks, and I know because I've done them and I used to do them and I've learned uh over the time over the time, over time rather, is that one, they're either too overwhelming and too big, like similar examples in recent engagements, um, such as the client council. But also, there isn't clear guardrails, it's just rules and rules and rules, and it makes it really hard to follow. As I said, there are numerous examples I can give, but when we moved the dial and shifted to an adaptive governance lens lens where we used shorter risk-based approvals, clearer delegations, and understood when we needed to escalate, it actually cut the cycle time in half without losing control. And that's real capability in action. A good example of that is another piece of work where, although we wouldn't flag decisions all the way up the line, we made sure that we ranked them. They're either level one, which is executive level, C level, level two, which was at your steering committee or head of level, and then level three was at the program level, where nothing at a level three really needed to be reported up the line, but there was reference to it centrally in our tools to make sure there was historical traceability. So this is why adaptive governance, decision confidence is so important. A second capability area that I would focus on, uh, not surprisingly, is delivery discipline. So this isn't about bureaucracy and the governance and the rules and processes that underpin delivery, but it's the rhythms and the cadences. Teams that have predictable cadences that are, you know, co-designed together. They include things such as, you know, they might have uh regular risk cuddles or retrospectives every Friday at 10 a.m., or they might have a review of the schedule together weekly, whatever the whatever the cadences that you have, it helps to create calm in chaos. One energy company, as an example, I worked with had a failed transformation attempt. On the second round, when we went in, we helped them to co-design governance that was actually effective and also cut a lot of the red tape that existed in their existing enterprise PMO. But more importantly, what we did is we created predictable cadences that happened regardless of whether there was anything to share. And what it did is it started providing effectively pockets, pockets of time or moments of time where people knew if they had something that related to that particular category of information, the risk, the issues, it was a decision, whatever it might be. They knew when to, when they would be able to present themselves for that, when they would be able to raise it. And they were able to work in a way that was much more calming than waiting to find out when something was going to be booked in advance and not knowing whether there was anything that was in place that was going to be consistent enough for them to plan their programs around. So when we think about discipline and delivery discipline, it's not about rigidity. I'm always all for having a playbook or a framework for how delivery should operate, but also give people some of the freedom to focus on the high value areas and do so by providing consistent cadences. Doing so also provides greater confidence in the delivery teams themselves. You'll be amazed at how much of a difference you will see in your delivery teams when A, they design the delivery cadences together as a team, two, they remain consistent, and three, that they're given the right guardrails to be able to focus on the high-value activities and not just firefighting. So delivery discipline is the second of three capability areas to focus on. And then the third one is change agility. This one's really set sounds really simple, but it's very powerful. This is the similar to um adaptiveness in general and adaptive capability overall, this is enabling you and your teams to pivot without losing direction. And I'll give you a good example of this in action. So working on a recent client engagement that was regulatory in nature. Now, as you may or may not know, when we talk about regulatory compliance programs, they are never predictable because you can't control when a regulator is going to release a law, when they're going to open up for uh industry feedback, when their review cycles are going to finish. And typical government fashion, nothing happens when they say it will. So the best delivery teams I've ever worked with, similar to the one that I was working with recently, were comfortable with change because they expect it. They expect change, they know it's coming, and they're prepared for it. They will think about what is true now, and then they'll adjust their plans very quickly based on new information, uh, changes to legislation, changes to policies and frameworks in an organization, changes to availability of tools, anything at all that is happening around them. They also don't wait for someone to tell them. They are able and confident, back to delivery confidence, to uh respond. And and I'll probably give you one more example. So, partway through a recent transformation, there was a sudden uh shift in direction at the top of the food chain, uh top of the hierarchy, with a new CEO coming into play. And that transformation agenda completely shifted and flipped on its head. In fact, it forced a complete redesign of the program, and the teams that handled it the best weren't the ones that had the fanciest tools, but they're the ones that had experience and practice adapting together. So you can see, so you can see here the key theme is adaptiveness, and adapting together is essential, and doing so means you're gonna get greater outcomes. So now that we've talked about three of many core capabilities to focus on, where do you actually start? Let me have a sip of water. Okay. So first and foremost, now this is something that um I I would say is probably one of the most um important, probably one of the most important one, well, maybe the first two are two of the most important things that have been key to success for me and also for AMO over the last 10 years. First, it's observing the friction. So, as I said, a lot of consultants will come in with the best framework and the best training, and we're gonna coach you to do this and we're gonna do that. And they just listen to what the client says and then assume it's all accurate and true. Don't test any assumptions and then get on with providing solutions. The problem is they didn't start by asking where people are stuck, where decisions slow down, where does work bounce around, or why is no one owning it. There is plenty of places where capability gaps live if you just look for it. And so observing the friction is one of the first things I would do. And in fact, is one of the first things we do in general. And the second one, tied very closely, is having conversations, not doing assessments. And this is where you'll actually be having conversations and listening to teams. Now, remember what I said at the beginning, not just delivery teams, operational teams as well. And this is where we'll listen for patterns, we'll look for duplication, we'll look for rework, we'll look for missed handovers, we'll look for these sorts of things because these sorts of things is what's slowing people down. And they're the signals that you want to pay attention to. Once you've defined those signals, you then want to look at piloting a capability uplift in a particular area. And you may pick a particular area that will help to drive adaptive improvements based on what you've just witnessed and what signals you've identified. And then fourthly, you want to also then align leadership. Executives might think capability means training. And if they think that, your efforts will stall. I've been in client conversations where I've mentioned the word capability and they'll say, oh, HR takes care of that, or we have a training framework, or we have an LMS, a learning management system, etc. And that just shows me that they don't understand capability. So leaders themselves have to model the adaptive behaviors we want our teams to do. And as a CEO myself, I need to help make them understand that it is normal and really, really important to be adaptive and to have that change agility that's necessary. So they that's where I would start, just to um effectively uncover the capability gaps that you might have in your organization or your team. Once you think about those things, I also want you to think about the kind of key things to avoid. And these are based on uh examples I've just given, but also things I've seen that organizations have tried to do. One is don't just start with training. Capability grows from doing things, not just learning. This is why mentoring programs, like the PMO leader mentoring program, is so helpful because it actually enables the mentees to do as opposed to just listen. And so it's really, really important to not just start with training. The other thing is don't throw frameworks at people. I remember a government, Victorian government department that um had experienced framework challenges and gaps, and they thought that was a problem, but it wasn't. They just made themselves believe that was the problem. And they thought their teams just needed another model. What they actually needed was permission to apply what they already knew and work together more effectively. It was actually the cadences that were holding their teams back and the decision fatigue. The third thing is don't assume delivery capability, live delivery capability rather, lives just in the delivery teams, as I highlighted earlier on. It's also the operational functions that are supporting delivery because some of the biggest capability gaps is between the handover from delivery teams into operations. Sometimes it's thrown over the set, thrown over the fence. So that's another key area to focus uh and avoid. And then finally, don't over-measure. So you I remember another example of an organization, very, very large international organization whose Australia's whose Australia division of the organization spent an inordinate amount of time, money, energy on a very complex PPM tool. And they thought that having beautiful dashboards and Power BI plugins and all of these resources spending time doing this was going to be the key to success. But years passed, and I still get input that nothing has changed because the behavior hasn't changed. So if you're only measuring the activities, you'll miss the progress. And we know that without progress, there is no outcomes. And then thinking about the overarching BAU operational conversation, let's talk about embedding capability into BAU. And in this uh this regard, what we need to think about is that it's not just about building capability because these functions aren't going anywhere, but it's about helping them to make capability part of their work. So here's a few ideas that I've seen work firsthand. One organization I work with built reflection into their delivery. And so they they looked at what worked, what didn't, and they did that at the end of each milestone, not at the end of a project, not the end of a program. They did it throughout at every milestone, and that helped them drive um insight and learnings and lessons, not just in delivery, where they'll go on, move, move on to the next project, but actually into operations. We also used governance as a learning loop in another organization. And this was about making sure we weren't just reviewing progress, but how the teams came together to improve. So, this particular manufacturing organization, we spent some time with them developing an annual framework that they could um bring teams together in a competitive nature, so someone from every function of the organization, and they would focus on how they could uplift capability for their function, whether it was improving the water quality in their um in the manufacturing in the manufacturing space, whether it was increasing the number of experiments in a pharmaceutical space, whether it was about leveraging better financial resources in the enterprise PMO. Every team brought something to the table and they used this learning loop to drive improvements. Celebrating adaptive behavior is another way of referencing and calling out and showcasing when something is done, usually under pressure, and it's a positive uh step forward for the business. And that's all about celebrating that adaptive behavior. And that is really important because then people get the confidence to make more decisions, and then replacing performance reviews with learning reviews. So, how many people listen to a um feedback from their manager once a year? And then that manager might be having a shit day, let's be honest, and may not give you a really good result. Or in some organizations where out of your whole department you can only rank people and only have a top five, which is crazy, even if 10 of the people in your department. Department went above and beyond. So why don't we go from performance review to learning review and think about what we learnt this quarter or quarter would be ideal. You could go monthly, to be honest, as a small business, monthly is fine and it helps us to then leverage what's working well. But a quarterly would be at minimum instead of annually, and leveraging those learning reviews because you want to see that your people are constantly learning. Otherwise, you're just standing still. And remember, key to all of this is that capability uplift isn't a separate stream of work. It's something that you build through practice and over time. So now that we've covered off all of that, I want you to think about what I said at the very outset. When we talk about building capability, remember it's not just about people's skills. It's not about adding layers of processes and frameworks. It's not about introducing new tools and training people on AI and all of these sorts of things. It's actually about creating clarity and providing the rhythm and adaptability so that teams can work better under pressure, but also so that they are able to drive greater outcomes because they'll be more adaptive, they'll have decision clarity, and they'll have that necessary change agility, change agility to drive the right outcomes. When you think about capability and adaptive governance in general, you think about where could your organization introduce some of these principles and then in return get faster, smarter decisions overall in your end-to-end environment. Because ultimately, starting with governance and decision making is really where the capability journey can begin, because everything can be built from on top of that. Now, when we think about capability, as I've said earlier, it's it's not something that you just set and forget or that you just turn on and you use and then you turn it off. No, it's something that continues to evolve every milestone, every decision, every conversation, every moment. So there you have it. Uh, bit of an overview on building delivery capability and also uh things to think about, to avoid, and some things to think about of where to start. And if you've gotten this far and you're wondering, well, how do I move my team forward or my business forward? Or what can I share with my manager to help our team who has execution gaps and has problems and needs some support? We are piloting a capability workshop. It is a fast-paced, engaging, collaborative, using our one-of-a-kind capability in a box product suite, including our CIAB cards, persona mapping, and so much more. And we're looking for two or three pilot customers to work with us in the coming three or four months to see firsthand how the model that we've built actually can help you to identify the necessary friction that needs to be removed, help you to self-assess through a practical and tailored workshop experience, rather, and then show you how to map and then pilot your own capability uplifts. And this experience has driven 90 plus percent on PIR results and has driven repeat customers in a number of industries because it actually brings operational and delivery teams together and provides the necessary path to move forward. Otherwise, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Agile Ideas, which is a bit of a solo episode. As always, if this episode resonated with you, I would absolutely love it if you would share it or leave a quick review. And as always, let's keep closing the gaps between strategy, delivery, and operations. Until next time, I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Please share this with someone or rate it if you enjoyed it. Don't forget to follow us on social media and to stay up to date with all things Agile Ideas go to our website www.agilemanagementoffice.com. I hope you've been able to learn, feel, or be inspired today. Until next time, what's your agile idea?