Dee Teal · Delivery leadership
Good delivery should be the normal result, not the heroic one.
I lead delivery for enterprise web platforms across arts, health, law and government. Eleven years in, six of them running the delivery function rather than a single project: the people, the practice and the standards around them.
Open source
WordPress 5.6
Release coordinator on the first all-women and non-binary release squad
Team growth
10 to 20
Grew a distributed delivery team in twelve months, across a 6.5 hour time zone spread
Regional revenue
43%
Share of company revenue delivered by the region I led, FY2021/22
Recognition
8 awards
For a national performing arts website I led delivery on
How I run a delivery function
Make it safe to be wrong.
Problems that arrive early are cheap. I build teams where people can raise them without paying for it.
Light touch, properly defined.
Light touch is about how much justification I ask for, not how often we talk. One-to-ones belong to the person, not to me.
Values you can assess.
You cannot assess whether someone is collaborative. You can assess whether they work in the open. I write standards down so they can be measured, not argued about.
Selected work
Human Made · 2018 to 2022
Building a delivery practice in a fully remote agency
Doubled a regional team across three continents and built the practice that is still producing delivery directors.
WordPress open source · 2020
Coordinating WordPress 5.6
Shipping a major release of software that runs over 40% of the web, with no line authority over anyone.
A national law firm · 2026
Taking over a platform nobody could support
Stabilising a headless platform inherited from another agency, inside four months.
What colleagues say
“…embedding agile best practice and directly managing people across multiple timezones and regions.”
Tom Willmot, CEO and co-founder, Human Made
Speaking
Speaking since 2011 on the human side of delivery: client relationships, remote and cross-cultural teams, women in leadership and, now, what AI changes about the brief. Includes keynotes at WordCamp Sydney, WordCamp Sunshine Coast and WordCamp Auckland, WordCamp Europe in 2016, 2019 and 2024, and a featured slot at WordCamp Canada in 2025.
Next talk
You’re All Project Managers Now: Why your agent is only as good as your brief
Enqueue, Sydney · 9 December 2026
Writing and conversation
Managing Remotely is where I write about distributed teams, project management and managing yourself. Future of Team is the podcast I co-hosted with James Giroux on performance, feedback, engagement and inclusive leadership.
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I’m co-hosting the Future of Team Podcast
One of my favourite ‘I slid into their DMs’ stories comes from Rob McElhenny and Ryan Reynolds recounting the beginning days of a friendship that has matured into a(n ad)venture with the North Welsh soccer team, Wrexham AFC. If you…
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10 things I wish I knew on entering the workforce
Around a food laden table recently, a group of women at various stages in our careers had the chance to share our journeys with our friend, a new university graduate embarking on making the first steps in her career. We…
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Seasonal Change
Here in the south east of Australia we’re in the early weeks of spring. It really crept up on me this year. I was so absorbed in the routine of my everyday wintery life that for a minute I might…
Get in touch
A talk, a podcast, or a delivery problem worth a conversation. Email me at hello@deeteal.com.