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Headshot of Lucy Preston, Practice Lead for Product Delivery

Lucy Preston

Practice Lead, Product Delivery · she/her

Lucy leads the Product Delivery practice. She is a delivery and operations leader who has spent her career building and running high-performing, cross-functional teams and getting complex technical projects over the line without losing sight of the people doing the work. She cares as much about team wellbeing and clear communication as she does about hitting the date.

In Lucy's words

I've worked in tech and digital for over 15 years now, always in the delivery space. What keeps me hooked is the problem-solving, pulling a team together around a shared goal and figuring out how to get there. I've spent a lot of time working with the public sector, and it's something I'm genuinely passionate about: building digital services that make everyday life a bit easier for the people using them, even if they never think about what's behind it.

Outside of work I'm Mum to two little girls, who keep me honest and motivated every day. My eldest has already decided she wants to do what Mummy does when she grows up, which might be the best compliment I've ever had.

What Lucy focuses on

  • Setting the delivery standards and methodology CDS teams work to, and tailoring them to what each client actually needs
  • Sharing what good delivery looks like across teams, from reporting and governance through to risk and dependency management
  • Developing delivery people at every level through mentoring, coaching and honest feedback
  • Championing CDS's delivery capability with clients and in new work

Background

Lucy has led delivery across both public and private sectors, most recently as a Principal Delivery and Operations Lead working with public sector and healthcare clients on electronic health record and interoperability projects. Along the way she has grown a multi-disciplinary team from eight to more than fifty-five people in six months, taken an NHS patient portal to beta six months ahead of schedule, and designed delivery methodologies that clients and colleagues adopted as their own. Earlier roles span product ownership in insurance and commercial and project management in telecoms.

Strengths

Programme and project delivery · delivery assurance and recovery · risk, dependency and escalation management · product ownership and roadmapping · stakeholder management and trusted-adviser conversations · coaching and developing people

Qualifications

PRINCE2 Practitioner · ITIL v3

Get in touch

Product Delivery practice sessions are open to everyone at CDS. To join one, use the resources, or talk through anything delivery, reach Lucy at lucy.preston@cds.co.uk, or connect on LinkedIn.