Head of Delivery Management

The Digital Delivery function within DDTS is recruiting a Head of Delivery Management.

You will line manage and support the development of Programme Delivery Managers and Delivery Managers across the digital portfolio. These roles are critical to the delivery of digital services for Defra that meet the Service Standard. You will lead the Delivery Management Community, focussing on improving the quality of the service. You will operate at a strategic level to understand and realise the value of Agile delivery that prioritises value for users, and continue to evolve the team to be aligned to the Digital, Data and Technology (DDaT) framework for delivery.

**Person specification**

**Responsibilities**
- Mentoring and coaching of Delivery professionals. Support professional development and continuous improvement of the team.
- Lead accountability for the hiring, development, moves and exits from the community, covering civil servants, suppliers and contractors.
- Represent and promote the role within the department and work with other heads of roles to promote effective cross-functional digital delivery.
- Provide leadership and guide the communities of practice for the roles and build capability and excellence in Delivery Management and Programme Delivery Management.
- Set standards for Delivery Management quality, output and impact, including creation of templates and resources where necessary
- Work with other communities and across the organisation to represent the Delivery profession and build understanding and engagement with the approach.
- Be a skilled leader who is able to reliably communicate the value of the role to digital and non-digital stakeholders. Work strategically to remove blockers to the Delivery profession.
- Line-manage Programme Delivery Managers, Delivery Managers and Lead Resource Managers for the professions. Be accountable for the recruitment of the right people to the right services.

**Skills and Experience**
- Agile and Lean practices. You know how to coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices. You are a recognised professional that advocates these approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team. You can create or tailor new ways of working; you are always innovating.
- Communication skills. You can mediate between people and mend relationships, communicating with stakeholders at all levels. You can manage stakeholder expectations and facilitate discussions about high risk and complexity even within constrained timescales. You can speak and represent the community to large audiences inside and outside of government.
- Financial management. You know how to negotiate, influence or set budgets in complex environments. You can write or input into business cases and can communicate business-value propositions.
- Life-cycle perspective. You know how to successfully lead teams through the full product life cycle. You can identify which tools and techniques should be used at each stage. You can develop sustainable support models. You can identify and deal with potential risks across or between all stages of the product life cycle. You know how to coach others. You can contribute to the assessment of other teams, providing guidance and support as they move through stages of the product life cycle.
- Maintaining delivery momentum. You know how to optimise the delivery flow of teams. You proactively address the most complicated risks, issues and dependencies including where ownership exists outside the team or no clear ownership exists. You can identify innovative ways to unblock issues.
- Making a process work. You can identify and challenge organisational processes of increasing complexity and those processes that are unnecessarily complicated. You can add value and can coach the organisation to inspect and adapt processes. You know how to guide teams through the implementation of a new process.
- Planning. You know how to lead a continual planning process in a very complex environment. You can plan beyond product delivery. You can identify dependencies in plans across services and coordinate delivery. You know how to coach other teams as the central point of expertise.
- Team dynamics and collaboration. You know how to change organisational structures to fixable and sustainable designs. You can lead on strategy for an entire organisation, joining up business needs with innovative analysis. You can make and justify outputs characterised by high levels of risk, impact and complexity. You know how to build consensus between organisations (private or public) or highly autonomous and diverse stakeholders. You can solve and unblock issues within teams or departments at the highest level. You understand the psychology of a team and have proven mediation skills. You can coach an organisation on team dynamics and conflict resolution.

**Job Types**: Full-time, Part-time, Permanent

**Salary**: £59,341.00-£72,349.00 per year

**Benefits**:

- Casual dress
- Cycle to work sche