Release Manager

Title:

About KBR and the Project

KBR are a global technical solutions provider with 28,000 employees worldwide, with operations in 34 countries delivering to customers in 80 countries. KBR work collaboratively with their wide customer base to deliver solutions that strive to create a better, safer and more sustainable world.

KBR's Estates Intelligence division specialise in enabling clients to make informed decisions about the operational and strategic management of their estates and asset portfolios, including the external supply chain retained to deliver asset management and maintenance services.

KBR has developed and implemented an innovative, cost-effective solution for the strategic management of estates and facilities services. The Estates Intelligence model and our 6 A methodology; Aggregation, Automation, Asset Management, Assurance, Audit and Analytics, enable the strategic management of estates and facilities services, which is an evolving model in the FM market.

As part of the ongoing growth of its Estates Intelligence, KBR is actively recruiting to expand its team to deliver current and future public sector Estates Intelligence contracts.

About the Role

We are looking for an experienced Client-facing Release Manager to shape and manage Change and Release across Estates Intelligence to ensure stable, maintained, and secure systems. This role will be required to own the Change and Release Management frameworks, process, the supporting tooling and lead its governance, for technical changes, such as software / hardware / config changes. They will coordinate change planning and approvals with our Client(s) and third parties. The role holder will work with Project, Delivery and BAU teams delivering changes, enhancements and new functionality, to help them apply Release Management principles and influence delivery planning and approach to Release Management best practice. The role holder will manage both internal and client facing projects and will be accountable for Continual improvements to our Change Management and Release Management processes while aligning to Clients needs.

The ideal candidate will have both Change and Release Management experience, as well as an IT projects delivery background, and will have experience of managing technical change and delivering technical solutions, ideally for the Public Sector. The role requires good understanding of ITIL Service Management, in particular Change and Release Management, in complex multi-party environments. In addition, the role requires a good understanding of Project delivery methodologies, including Agile and Waterfall, and across the Software Development Lifecycle, as well as for infrastructure projects.

The successful candidate will require excellent communication, influencing, and problem-solving skills, and be able to manage stakeholder engagement at all levels.

Core Responsibilities:

• Manage the Change Management governance and processes across internal technical changes and working with the Data and Process Change Manager on Change alignment.

• Own the Change Management Framework, ensuring the Framework is maintained (via Continuous Improvement) to ensure it remains aligned to changing origination and client needs, and support improvements to ensure stable, maintained, and secure systems.

• Engage with internal and external stakeholders (Client(s) and third parties) in support of engagement with and adherence to the Change Management framework, including coordinate change, preparation, planning and approvals (excluding Data and Process Changes).

• Being accountable for the governance of technical Change, providing traceability, transparency, audit and reporting of changes, as well as performance of and adherence to the process  .

• Provide Release Management expertise to Project, Delivery and BAU teams, delivering changes, enhancements and new functionality, influencing them to help them apply Release Management principles and influence delivery planning and approach to Release Management best practice.

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including development, operations, business stakeholders, and third-party vendors, to ensure successful Change execution.

• Establishes priorities for the completion of assigned tasks, supervises and manages the input of others, ensuring task completion in compliance with policies, procedures, and business strategy.

• Managing a variety of small and medium projects, often in parallel where appropriate and supporting large projects.

• Management and coordination of the activities required to deliver the annual systems maintenance plan for Clients, ensuring stable, maintained and secure systems.

• Ensure compliance with contractual obligations, industry regulations, and business policies while continuously seeking process improvements.

• Lead change and release lessons-learned initiatives to drive continuous improvement and innovation.

Required Professional Qualifications:

Essential:

• Recognised ITIL certifications, including Change and Release Management.

Desirable:

• An undergraduate degree in Computer Science, Information Technology, or related field

• Knowledge of Project Management frameworks such as (PRINCE2, MSP, Scrum Master, Agile)

• Full UK driving licence (plus own transport)

Required Professional Experience:

Essential:

• 5+ years of Service Management experience, with a focus on leadership of Change and Release Management across technical change areas and teams.

• Experience of working with Service Management delivery teams and with project delivery teams ensuring Change Management Frameworks are adhered to.

• Capable of defining and adapting ITIL frameworks to varying environments and applying in complex multiple partner environments.

• Experience of working with technical delivery teams and project teams to adopt Release Management principles, influencing the planning, scheduling and deployment of changes, ensuring stable, maintained, and secure systems.

• Capable of building delivery project plans, identifying resource requirements, key tasks to fulfil the plan and applying of project delivery methodology, tooling and artefacts, including scope and change management, governance and RAID management.

• Experience in managing IT Service Management and Service Delivery Projects, working with internal teams, third party Clients and Vendors.

• Proficient in the use of Service Management tooling, such as Jira, as well as Project planning and delivery tooling, such as Jira, Microsoft Project, SmartSheet.

• Knowledge and experience of the Public Sector technology programmes.

• Experience of working with operational teams in demanding, delivery focused environments.

• Capable of using initiative whilst understanding the tolerances and boundaries that necessitate escalation.

• Excellent stakeholder management, interpersonal skills and client relationship skills, with a demonstrated ability to manage expectations and deliver high-quality results, in this highly visible and client facing role .

• Able to build collaborative and productive working relationships with vendors, clients and internal technical resources.

• Capable at running effective Service Management governance, with both internal and external stakeholders.

• Possess analytical skills to break down complex scopes of work, arrange them in a logical sequence, identify dependencies, constraints and opportunities.

• Good written, oral, comprehension and presentational skills to enable effective communication with both internal and external stakeholders.

• A good level of knowledge of IT systems including a general knowledge of software development and software and hardware architecture, including the explain how systems work, especially to non-IT literate audiences.

Desirable:

• Experience of preparing and delivering presentations to internal and external stakeholders.

• Experience of collaborating in a MS Teams environment.

• Experience of Service Management delivery to or for public sector clients.

• Experience of Service Management delivery in a Cloud-environment.

• Experience of Service Management delivery in a secure environment (Official-Sensitive or higher).

The role is Hybrid and operates agile working practices, with requirement to regularly attend Leatherhead HQ, and occasional travel to Swindon National Service Hub and client sites (typically London)

We Deliver — Together.