Delivery Lead

We have an excellent new career opportunity in IT within the Data Capability Hub as a Delivery Lead. If you are enthusiastic about Technology and Delivery and want to make a lasting impact, this role will offer you the opportunity to thrive. 

The Role

•  Assist the Head of IT in providing technology and delivery direction and expertise for the value stream. Acting as a point of contact for all aspects of delivery and operational management, ensuring that IT contributes significant business value. Function as an ambassador for IT and make a positive contribution to the feedback that the function receives.
• The Delivery Lead has overall accountability for the success of a Squads within an Agile Release Train (ART) within the value stream, acting both as a servant leader and coach. The main responsibilities include removing blockers, ensuring progress can be made by squads by removing issues outside of their control, dealing with any organisational impediments, and protecting them from unnecessary distraction. 
• The Delivery lead is responsible for the day-to-day agile management activities, coaching, Line management of Squad Leads, and ensuring that Agile Ceremonies or conducted consistently, driving a culture of skills growth and continuous improvement.
• Ensuring that the optimum balance is achieved between costs, value, and benefits in provision of IT services and systems, working within business priorities as agreed by the Change board, ensuring that ‘business demand’ is matched to ‘IT supply’ as needed.
• Keep abreast of IT and general technology developments in the broader marketplace, and make recommendations, ensuring these are understood and where appropriate, exploited across the business to increase business value derived from systems and processes.

Accountabilities & Responsibilities

• Alongside the ART and value stream leadership, takes responsibility for the development and monitoring of OKR’s/key performance indicators. Maintaining clear controls on performance and costs.
• Accountable for supporting Product Leads by ensuring ART activities align with strategic objectives.
• Responsible for both timely and effective tracking and reporting on ART progress on OKRs to APMO and other business stakeholders.
• Accountable for having a clear understanding of the needs of the business and uses this to develop and maintain tribe delivery plans. Focussing on business risk, ART and value stream incoming and outgoing dependencies, cross value stream interdependencies and continuity issues which impact the delivery plan.
• Accountable for supporting the ART and value stream leadership in providing resource and cost estimates for business cases.
• Accountable for actively representing the ART and value stream in monthly governance forums to ensure critical tribe interdependences are managed effectively.
• Responsible for working in support of the ART and value stream Leadership on the monthly Portfolio backlog refinement, ensuring capacity and delivery plans are aligned.
• Accountable for maintaining and facilitating ART level resource plans, forecasts future resource requirements and collaborating with Principal engineer, Chapter leads and other Tribe Delivery Leads to agree future resourcing strategies.
• Accountable for working with procurement to build most cost-effective resourcing contracts and Statement of Work’s (SoW’s) to ensure suppliers can be held to account on delivery of outcomes.
• Accountable for supporting Procurement in running RFP’s/RFI’s if a new resourcing supplier is required.
• Accountable for resourcing supplier performance management through monthly reviews and active tracking of agreed outcomes and SLA’s 
• Actively manage the resourcing suppliers to ensure they deliver the agreed outcomes within the agreed SoW’s.
• Responsible for managing Squad capacity, utilisation, and velocity. Actively engages with other Squad Leads in the ART and ART leadership to discuss resourcing and utilisation strategies.
• Accountable for increasing greater delivery throughput and improved efficiencies through capability uplift strategies and continuous improvements. 
• Accountable for identifying, tracking, removing and escalating impediments and blockers at ART level to maintain both pace and flow of value.
• Accountable for ensuring ART level ceremonies such as ART Planning, Portfolio Sync, Weekly Scrum of Scrums and Sprint Demos and Show and Tell’s are conducted focusing on value return. 
• Accountable for understanding operating with ART budgets and ensuring adherence to Guardrails at an ART level.
• Accountable owner and role model for living the following values: productivity, quality, transparency, and openness over internal politics.
• Takes responsibility, within an IT service facility/operational environment, for setting targets, monitoring performance, and managing the service in an efficient and effective manner.
• Accountable for managing incidents, collaborating with the Service teams to ensure incidents are brought to a speedy resolution.
• Responsible for being the escalation point for any ART release issues.
• Advocate and lead on ways of working and methods (e.g., Agile) that continually improve IT services, ensuring the adoption and adaptation of systems development lifecycle models as needed to advance business outcomes.
• Acting in accordance and within the spirit of both business and regulatory policies and conduct rules e.g., Risk, Security and Compliance.
• Responsible for supporting the Head of IT with management duties for Squad Leads with a view to focussing on coaching and mentoring techniques that align to both agile principles and Admiral values.

Knowledge and Experience Required

Leadership

• Technology leadership experience in an agile environment.
• Excellent communicator with ability to negotiate, influence and explain, particularly to large business teams and geographically distant area.
• Able to lead calmly through periods of high pressure whilst inspiring people and teams to achieve excellence and grow their skills.
• Experienced across core facets of IT operations, including define, monitor and improving services and processes.
• Experienced budget management skills.
• Innovative and creative thinking.
• Experience of designing and delivering business solutions.
• Experience in SLA development & management.
• Project management experience.
• Drive, enthusiasm, and a can-do attitude.
• Practical knowledge of the industry and professional standards.
• Extensive knowledge and experience with line management through both coaching and mentoring techniques.
• Knowledge and experience of Agile development techniques like: User Stories, Continuous Integration, ATDD - Acceptance Test Driven Development, TDD - Test-driven development, Continuous Testing, Pairing and Automated Testing

Technical Experience

• Knowledge and experience in Scrum development practices and continuous integration & deployment.
• Knowledge and experience with 3^rd party service providers including facilitation of RFP, onboarding, and performance management (design of SLA and overall KPI).
• Experience and awareness of IT architectural governance, standards, and methodology.
• Experience and awareness of CISO governance frameworks, standards, controls, and auditing documentation covering both business and technology solutions currently within product backlogs.
• Knowledge of identification and management of engineering, design and testing standards and practices that comply with internal organisation IT governance and architectural standards within a heavily regulated environment.
• Knowledge and experience in the use of tools such as: Jira, Confluence etc.
• High-level knowledge and experience operating within IT – both change and service support.
• Knowledge and experience with design & development of Front-End (Angular / React) and Guidewire (preferrable).

Interview Process

2 Stage Interview process via Microsoft Teams

Location

This is a remote role with a requirement to attend our Cardiff office once a quarter or as and when required. If you live within 50 miles of our Cardiff office, the role will be hybrid. 

Please note: This advert may close early if we receive a high volume of applications.

Admiral: Where You Can

We take pride in being a diverse and inclusive business. It's a place where you can Be You, and show up as you are. We’re committed to fostering a people-first culture where everyone is accepted, supported, and empowered to be brilliant. You can, Grow And Progress at a pace and direction that suits you, Make A Difference for our customers and each other, and Share in Our Future with all colleagues eligible for up to £3,600 of free shares each year after one year of service.

Everyone receives 33 days holiday (including bank holidays) when they join us, increasing the longer you stay with us, up to a maximum of 38 days (including bank holidays). You also have the option to buy or sell up to an additional five days of annual leave.

We’re proud of our people-first culture. In fact, we've been recognised as a Great Place to Work for Women, a Great Place to Work for Wellbeing, and an overall Great Place to Work for over 25 years! We’re fully committed to making sure your progression is not slowed or halted by barriers related to race, gender, age, sexuality or any of the protected characteristics.

Our fantastic benefits make sure our colleagues have a great work-life balance; You can view some of our other key benefits here.

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