Recently I became a Technical Director, a rather painless transition. Yet, I spent the first few weeks getting to grips with what it really means to Direct Technology for people.

Although the learning process is ongoing, I’ve already managed to help people. Here are three examples why I think you could benefit from having a Technical Director.

Steering stakeholders

There are normally many people who want input into a project, especially if it’s close to them or their business. This is a good thing, the more people who feed into the project the better the outcome will reflect the needs of the business.

The task of collecting and understanding all of the project’s requirements is a difficult one, made more difficult if the stakeholders hold sway over the business. No one wants to tell the CEO to stop holding up the project!

A Technical Director has the skills to gather requirements without judgement, measuring them against the objectives of the project. They can identify if a requirement can be served by an existing implementation or assess any changes that might be needed. With this information the business can make decisions with everyone aware of the impact on time, scope and budget.

Wrangling scope

A project can quickly become a handful, from unforeseen requirements to third parties holding up progress. Having someone who understands the technology, be able to identify risks and quickly mitigate them is the difference between success and failure.

Even when a project is running on time it doesn’t mean the deliverable will meet with the needs of the business. A projects myopic focus is good for getting it delivered but could mean the technical choices being made might not fit with the wider, long term strategy.

A Technical Directors background helps them look at a project from the technology point of view. Making sure choices have minimal impact to the scope and keeping risks to a minimum. They are also in a great position to look at where the project sits in the wider strategy, giving the delivery team all the information they need.

Corral developers

Even when the stakeholders are onboard and the scope is clear, your developers can still lose their way. This is usually through no fault of their own, developing software is hard and there is little head space left to look after the peripherals.

Making sure there is adequate documentation or clearly defined coding standards are things that rarely make the project brief. Without these, though, and your project could suffer becoming obsolete quickly or have the knowledge siloed with the current project team.

A Technical Director can take care of this, asking the right questions to make sure these artifacts are created. They can also foster productive communication within the team, facilitating meetings and smoothing out any issues that arise.

What do you think?

Of the many responsibilities a Technical Director has, I think these have the most impact on a project and are pretty tricky to get right. Do you think these duties should sit with others on the team? Are there more important items a Technical Director should look after? I would love to know your thoughts.