Release Manager

Description

Release manager
Location: Brussel
Jobdescription
The role of a release manager is to focus on the details of bringing together the various interdependent products to satisfy a complex or solution based release.
This role focuses on coordinating the requirements, testing, and release schedules of other products so that they are available to work with any specific product that comprise that release. The release manager will participate on any project board of the waterfall type projects and in sprint planning or scrum of scrums on agile type projects in order to be aware of what changes are occurring across the release.
The release manager will own the Release Management lifecycle which includes scheduling, coordinating and the management of releases across the enterprise for multiple applications across various Portfolios The releases can be inclusive of application updates, operating system patches, security improvements, hardware upgrades, projects and even programs. Where necessary the release manger will provide tools and services to help product management and project teams to manage and deploy releases into production.
The release manager will be responsible for implementing and managing release processes for the progression of code in the development, test, and production environments. The release manager works collaboratively with all participants in software development projects and is supportive of developers and testers as they set up their build dev/test environments. This position also works with IT management to improve the software engineering processes and practices associated with continuously building, deploying, and updating software and environments.
The Release Management responsibilities also include building the Release Calendar in working closely together with the IT release coordinators from different portfolios across IT and centralizing a view of all releases. The release manager will also assist in managing projects and interdependencies to ensure milestone adherence in order to measure the integrity of the release.
Key activities for this role include:
•Communicate the organization vision and the process's strategic goals to business units and IT organizations
•Identify and assimilate similar and/or overlapping activities/initiatives within IT
•Co-ordinate inter-process releases with other process owners
•Provide process ownership through design, implementation and continuous improvement activities in the process life cycle
•Work with all functions within the IT community to ensure processes are executed as designed and measured accurately and completely
•Ensure alignment of the process to the corporate and IT strategy
•Publicize activities and build commitment and consensus around Release Management activities
•Facilitate resolution of interface problems with other process owners
•Communicate with and manage the expectations of customers of Release Management.
•Developing the release strategy and building the Release Calendar
•Ensuring requirements are clear across dependent project streams within a release
•Ensuring requirements that impact other projects (internal and external) are submitted to the other products' requirements lists or backlogs
•Tracking changes to requirements and communicate impacts to externally dependent product releases
•Ensuring the tasks associated with parallel and external deliverables are included in the project plan (build time, run time, merging, etc.)
•Ensuring items released in a parallel branch are merged and tested into this release as appropriate
•Ensuring technical guides and training are developed for the external functionality that must work together for this release
•Ensuring an adequate test environment is available and used, according the requirements and test scenario's defined for each of the projects in a release
•Ensuring the deliverables for the release meet the quality standards for deployment to the test environment
•Managing the deployment of the deliverables to the test environment specifically ensuring that the external dependent items are available at test runtime
•Working closely with the Test Manager to:
oReview releases and assign appropriate release testing tasks
oCompile and Review the Testing Deliverables
oConduct testing as needed
oConduct supporting documentation review
•Ensuring that adequate testing has been performed prior to submitting a release package to Change Management for approval to go to production
•Managing the deployment of deliverables into production (e.g., ensuring all internal and external pieces are collected for distribution and the distribution occurs to the correct group of potential users and targeted locations)
•Validating the release notes
•Ensuring all Customer, support staff and Service Desk staff are trained and provided with the appropriate documentation and information
•Validating the release is operating as expected; after the release has been implemented, the same regression testing is repeated to ensure the release was implemented successfully
•Interface and communicate with Test Managers, Dev Managers, IT Ops and the PMO on a daily base
•Managing up and providing reports to the Senior IT Management and the business.
Qualifications:
•Bachelor's degree in Computer Science or related field
•Advanced knowledge and practical experience with ITIL framework
•4-6 years of previous Release and Change Management experience, and solid understanding of Project Management principles
•Advanced knowledge and experience with Test and Service Management
•Formal training in project management practices preferred
•Advanced knowledge of Software Development Lifecycle
•Experience with working in an inter platform environment (mainframe, distributed, COBOL, JAVA, Frontend, Backend, …)
•Demonstrated ability to coordinate cross-functional work teams toward task completion
•Demonstrated effective leadership and analytical skills
•Able to supervise a project and/or release team
•Flexible and able to respond quickly to different situations
•Results-oriented and well in setting up and adhering to schedules and able to perform under pressure
•Advanced written and verbal communication skills are a must
•Bilingual Dutch/French with good knowledge of English (writing)
•Stress resistant
•Accurate & exhaustive
•Open to change