Principal Delivery Manager (SFIA 6)
Zaizi, United Kingdom

Work on exciting public sector projects and make a positive difference in people’s lives. At Zaizi, we thrive on solving complex challenges through creative thinking and the latest tools and tech.

Organisationally we have arranged our clients into business units, known as clubs. We currently have two clubs which are accountable and responsible for delivery client work against the GDS Service Standards.

We are looking for an experienced delivery manager to join one of our club's leadership team, and be accountable for the effective delivery of complex, high risk products and services across the club.

Our work culture is inclusive, modern, friendly, and democratic. We look for bright, positive-thinking individuals with a can-do attitude. Our people enjoy challenging themselves to be the best at what they do if that sounds like you, you'll fit right in!

The person we are looking for

• Is passionate about building public services that meet the needs of the people who use them
• Knows how to bring together a multidisciplinary team to understand and solve a problem.
• Has empathy to get the best out of each team member and to help the team perform.
• Can keep the team focused on outcomes, so that they can provide value to our clients.
• Understands how to use a variety of agile tools and techniques to keep projects moving at a sustainable pace.
• Is comfortable making quick, pragmatic decisions in a way that balances the needs of the team, project and client.
• Can Promote an energised culture that is focused on collaborative working in the interests of the club and wider organisation.
• Can lead and develop teams using matrix management principles influencing the skills, processes and tools for successful delivery.
• Ownership of delivery benefits and delivery strategy as agreed with Club Executive to ensure projects are delivered within agreed quality standards.

Skills Needed

• Agile and Lean practices. You can act as a recognised expert and advocate for the approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team. You can create or tailor new ways of working, and constantly innovate.
• Commercial management. You can take responsibility for complex relationships with contracted clients. Working with the client manager you can get good value out of contracts and suppliers.
• Communicating between the technical and non-technical. You can mediate between people and mend relationships, communicating with stakeholders at all levels. You can manage stakeholder expectations and moderate discussions about high risk and complexity, even within constrained timescales.
• Financial management. You can write or input into business cases and can communicate business-value propositions.
• Life cycle perspective. You can apply experience in multiple parts of the product life cycle. You can recognise when it is right to move forward and when it is right to stop. You can recognise the appropriate deliverables and the right people to meet them. You can plan and engage with the appropriate stakeholders at a particular stage in the project.
• Maintaining delivery momentum. You can optimise the delivery flow of teams. You can actively 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 can guide teams through the implementation of a new process.
• Planning. You can 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 co-ordinate delivery. You can coach other teams as the central point of expertise.
• Team dynamics and collaboration. You can identify problems or issues in the team dynamic and rectify them. You can identify issues through Agile ‘health checks’ with the team, and help to stimulate the right responses. You can engage in varying types of feedback, choosing the right type at the appropriate time and ensuring the discussion and decision stick. You can accelerate the team development cycle.

Requirements

• Proven experience of Agile Transformation over a number of years on multiple projects
• Experience in working with Local Government or Central Government clients
• Self-motivating and driven
• Strong focus in delivering value to clients and good outcomes for end users
• The ability to manage and mitigate risks in projects, programmes, and within Zaizi
• A strong understanding of

Job Rewards and Benefits