Senior Delivery Manager

Description

Programme Name: LCST

Location: Bristol, UK

Role Overview

We are seeking an experienced and collaborative Senior Delivery Manager to lead and support several cross‑functional IT development teams operating within a dynamic enterprise environment. In this role, your primary focus is to ensure that development capacity is effectively balanced between strategic Portfolio Assurance Group (PAG) prioritised project work and essential Business‑As‑Usual (BAU) activities—including defects, patching, and ever greening tasks. You will not own the project deliveries themselves, but you will own the capacity that is available and ensure it is applied to deliver maximum business value.

Strategically, you will act as a bridge between iterative IT delivery, where the development teams use scrum‑derived ways of working, and large‑scale, Waterfall‑managed projects. By providing a clear, forward‑looking view of candidate sprints, you will empower internal Project Managers to refine their plans and reconcile sprint contents against project dependencies and milestones. You will also mentor teams as they grow more effective and confident in scrum‑derived practices.

• Balance Project and BAU Demands: Allocate team capacity between the PAG‑prioritised project pipeline and necessary technical debt, defects, patching, and ever greening.
• Optimise Business Value: Align the project portion of output with the highest PAG business priorities to achieve strategic goals each sprint.
• Balance Demand with Capacity: Evaluate incoming Project Manager demands against capacity and commitments, ensuring constructive resource sharing.
• Partner with Project Managers: Build positive relationships with internal Project Managers, maintaining open communication and transparency over capacity constraints.

• Provide Forward‑Looking Roadmap Projections: Maintain a rolling forecast of candidate sprints for early visibility on delivery timelines.
• Enable Proactive Plan Adjustment: Share data insights that allow Project Managers to adjust baselines ahead of time.
• Support Dependency Visibility: Use Jira tooling to provide visibility for managing and reconciling dependencies.
• Maintain Backlog Health: Keep the teams’ Jira environment tidy to support data‑driven improvements in estimation and traceability.

• Support Team Learning: Mentor teams new to scrum‑derived ways of working, building stable velocity and reducing technical friction.
• Facilitate Ceremonies: Establish and run Stand‑ups, Planning, Refinement, and Retrospectives that build confidence and collaboration.
• Encourage Continuous Improvement: Use data from retrospectives to help teams mature and streamline delivery cycles.

• Protect Team Focus and Workflow: Support clear intake channels, preventing disruptions to active sprints.
• Contribute to Process Improvements: Offer feedback and suggest continuous improvements to delivery paths.
• Support Release Governance: Ensure deliverables meet Definitions of Done, compliance, security documentation, and sign‐offs.

• Track Record: Proven experience as a Technical Delivery Manager or Agile Delivery Manager delivering work for multiple projects in a hybrid environment.
• Forward‑Looking Forecasting: Ability to create, maintain, and communicate clear iteration plans and capacity forecasts across a complex portfolio.
• Capacity Management Expertise: Proven ability to balance a split backlog between business projects and technical maintenance.
• Hybrid Environment Familiarity: Experience with portfolio structures where iterative teams support concurrent Waterfall corporate projects.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Strong communication and negotiation skills, partnering with senior leaders and Project Managers.
• Tooling Proficiency: Hands‑on experience with Jira and integration with MS Project.
• Matrix Leadership: Influence and guide technical teams without direct line authority.

• BPSS pre‑screening required to start.
• SC clearance required for the role.

• Contributory…