Shows
Deliver That!Special: Summer BreakA little announcement for you.
It’s summer, just about, so we’re taking a little break from the podcast. Time for some holidays, to rest and recharge and regather ourselves ready for more discussions on leading projects and delivery teams, and everything involved in getting big stuff done.
So, we’re off for a while. But we’ll be back soon, ready to go.
Thanks for listening along to everything we’ve talked about so far. We really appreciate your company.
While we’re away, do listen back to anything you’ve misse...
2025-09-0101 min
Deliver That!Episode 009 — The First 30 DaysYou've started a new role as CDO. How do you get up and running?
The first month in a new position is the time for making impressions: for what you can understand about the business and it's for you to make your impression on the organisation too.
We talk about what's running through your mind in those first weeks, and discuss some practical things to do to get your bearings.
2025-08-2549 min
Deliver That!Episode 008 — Creating High Performance TeamsHow do you take a group of competent individuals and bring them together into a high-performing team?
We take a look at the presumptions, rules-of-thumb, and particular actions a Chief Delivery Officer can take to raise the water level so all the boats float higher.
And then we discuss how things can get off balance and the potential to sink a happy ship, the strange tidal forces both inside and outside the team.
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We begin our conversation talking about 'normal times', taking a group of people and doing the hard...
2025-08-181h 01
Deliver That!Episode 007 — Strategic Vision, Tactical View (pt. 2)Lovely though the views are, you're static on the mountain top. The journey doesn't happen here.
To get stuff done you have to come back down to ground level.
This is the world of your tactics.
In part 2 of the conversation we talk about execution — taking the strategy you created at the top of the hill and turning it into reality, with a thoroughgoing set of turn-by-turn actions.
This isn't a conversation about day-to-day delivery management — you already know plenty about all that. This is about executing your strategy.
We lo...
2025-08-1144 min
Deliver That!Episode 006 — Strategic Vision, Tactical View (pt. 1)As with many aspects of the CDO role, being able to hold a creative tension between strategy and execution is a distinctive quality.
The role requires you to do both
to see far ahead, and determine how to get where you're going
and, to take one step at a time on the path you've set, without getting distracted or discouraged.
Or, to put it differently, it's about altitudes of thinking
taking the time to stand on higher ground to get the long view
whilst knowing that things are put into action back at ground...
2025-08-0448 min
Deliver That!Episode 005 — Professionalism, Process … and Jazz (pt. 2)Professionalism demands that project delivery processes are comprehensive and robust.
That creates the right foundation for delivery jazz — situational agility and innovation.
The delivery principal must hold the tension in a fundamental balancing act between:
systematic and thoroughgoing processes on the one hand, and
situational agility with space for improvisation and innovation on the other
This gives us another C to add the three we've covered in part 1:
Calmness
Confidence
Consistency, and
Creativity
Over-boiling process that throttles creativity can be tragic for experts and specialists in delivery teams, creating a flight ris...
2025-07-2835 min
Deliver That!Episode 004 — Professionalism, Process … and Jazz (pt. 1)As the business matures, it stretches forward towards greater professionalism. We talk about the three Cs that are the aim of professionalism:
Calmness
Confidence
Consistency
We talk about the essence of professionalism:
Capturing 'our ways of working'
Making sure there's always value delivered — for customers, and for the standing of the business
Ensuring efficiency — removing unnecessary overheads
Giving clarity
And making the best client experience possible
And we talk about how hyper-growth can jeopardise a lot of that!
Professionalism demands that project delivery processes are comprehensive and robust. In the second half of the...
2025-07-2155 min
Deliver That!Episode 003 — The Essential Skill of Great CommunicationCommunication is a key skill in all jobs, right?
Well, clear and coherent communication is of a different order for a Chief Delivery Officer — unusual excellence in communication is a fundamental requirement of the job and an essential skill that should be particularly well developed.
The CDO is responsible for effective communication between all parties on projects: clear communication is vital to achieve outcomes. The CDO determines what and how a business communicates with customers and stakeholders. And so the CDO should show distinctive leadership in this key area.
In this episode we di...
2025-07-1451 min
Deliver That!Episode 002 — The strange role of Chief Delivery OfficerWe're picking up some threads from the first episode, looking in greater depth at the strangeness of a delivery leadership role.
In the first half we return to that uncomfortable location for the CDO — sitting between each customer's needs and the objectives of your own business — and we discuss how it's more complicated still, because you also need to serve the teams that actually deliver client outcomes. Experts need the right opportunity to exercise their expertise, and it's the CDO's duty to create that space and guard it. We've talk over an example or two for that.
2025-07-0751 min
Deliver That!Episode 001 — What actually is a Chief Delivery Officer?The very first episode of the Deliver That! podcast — a show about delivery leadership for projects, teams, and programs — the big concepts, real-life stories from the front line, and everything involved in the role of a Chief Delivery Officer.
In episode 1 we introduce the podcast and ourselves:
What’s the reason for the podcast and what are we aiming to do with it?
Who are we, Steve Hunton and Joe Baker?
And what's the plan?
And then the heart of the discussion in this episode — what actually is a CDO, and why are we going to be talki...
2025-06-3050 min
Deliver That!Deliver That! Trailer
Deliver That! is a new podcast about project delivery leadership.
The big concepts, real-life stories from the front line, and everything involved in the role of a Chief Delivery Officer.
No filters. No fluff.
Just honest conversations about what happens in project and delivery leadership, and how big things really get done.
2025-06-2301 min