Release Manager

East Lothian  ‐ Onsite
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Description

Venesky-Brown's client, a public sector organisation in Edinburgh, is currently looking to recruit a Release Manager for an initial 12 month contract on a rate of £500-£550/day (inside of IR35). Due to the current circumstances this role will be remote based for the foreseeable future.

Responsibilities:
Adopt and maintain the Release Plan across the Programme. Maintain the Release Plan for all core IT and operational components ensure alignment across work threads, departments, key partners and vendors. Coordinates release impact assessments and release change requests as required, guiding and securing approval through relevant governance.
Coordinate release content/dependencies and effort based on the development backlog, pending defects/problems, third party applications delivery, or IT architecture/infrastructure system updates and business process and operational requirements. Manage relationships and coordinate delivery schedule based on business requirements, release dependencies and constraints across different project teams.
Participate in meetings to discuss release scope and/or roadblocks. Negotiate, plan and manage all release changes to schedules, content and quality expectations, liaising with relevant stakeholders and securing appropriate agreement.
Ensure that Release testing requirements are coordinated from delivery teams into the testing cycles in timely manner. Ensure that Testing teams have all information they require to manage the environment requirements, testing requirements and coordinate testing entry criteria agreement (especially around UAT and Digital First needs) and checking. Escalate release delivery to testing issues as appropriate.
Proactively identify, manage and escalate release based issues and risks and coordinate the resolution/mitigation of issues that affect release scope, schedule and quality. Ensuring go-live risks and mitigations are documented and approved by SRO/Programme governance.
Conduct and participate in broader Release Readiness reviews, Milestone Gate Reviews, and Operational Readiness reviews. Escalating programme risks, issues and dependencies - providing recommendations for remediation as appropriate. Act on any assigned actions/recommendations.
Produce fortnightly Release Status Reports. Communicate release details and schedules to the broader programme teams as required. Works closely with Programme Director Office to maintain consistency between Release Plan and the overall Programme Plan.
Communicate all key project plans, commitments, and changes including definitive release plans, requirements, QA plans, schedule, and scope changes. Advise Project Boards or equivalent management of deviations from the established Release Plan. Maintain the Release Story deliverable which documents the overall release approach to governance groups/stakeholders.

Essential Skills:
A successful track record in the management of large-scale operations/digital programmes & projects, to time and cost, which delivered quality outcomes and tangible business benefits.
Substantial experience of successfully delivering complex, multi-faceted programmes including digital technology delivery, multiple service/technical suppliers, people and process change deployment in a complex stakeholder environment.
2-6 years of previous release and/or project management experience. Formal training in project management practices preferred
A degree or similar level of education, or significant equivalent senior level experience.
Significant knowledge of software development life cycle and principles of software release management.
A strong and broad understanding of current programme and project management approaches and methodologies (including both Agile and Waterfall). ITIL Framework awareness useful.
Demonstrated effective leadership and strong analytical skills. Highly collaborative approach/management style. Demonstrated ability to coordinate cross-functional work teams to ensure tasks are completed in time with the release schedule
Advanced written and verbal communication skills are a must. Ability to manage complex internal and external relationships across multiple teams, including deploying conflict management skills. Ability to negotiate with and influence senior stakeholders across multiple departments/organisations.
Ability to apply risk assessment and management principles and processes. Ability to understand and identify problems, analysing and helping to identify the appropriate solution.
Ability to apply commercial expertise and advice, including experience of contract management of IT suppliers.
General PC knowledge including Microsoft Office expert level knowledge of Excel, Word and PowerPoint. Working knowledge of MS-Project and Jira also useful.

Desirable Skills:
Experience of public sector-based programmes and project management.
Experience of public-sector based governance and complex authorising environments.

If you would like to hear more about this opportunity please get in touch.
Start date
2021-03-24
Duration
12 months
From
Venesky-Brown
Published at
07.03.2021
Project ID:
2064612
Contract type
Freelance
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