Lead Delivery Manager

Location: National*

Closing Date: 16^th August

Interviews: 24^th August

Grade: Grade 6

(MoJ candidates who are on a specialist grade, will be able to retain this grade on lateral transfer)

Salary**: London: £75,674 – £85,257 (which may include an allowance of up to £4,801)

National: £71,381 – £80,419

Working pattern: Full-time, Part-time, Flexible working

Contract Type: Permanent

Number of vacancies: 1

Vacancy number: 20736

*We offer a hybrid working model, allowing for a balance between remote work and time spent in your local office. Office locations can be found ON THIS MAP
Please note that unless you are an existing member of staff at Justice Digital, Data and Science, the only London location being recruited to is 10 South Colonnade, E14 4PU. We are no longer recruiting to 102 Petty France, SW1H 9AJ.

The Role

We’re recruiting for a Lead Delivery Manager here at Justice Digital, Data and Science to be part of our warm and collaborative Prisons team.

This role aligns against Delivery Manager Profession from the Government Digital and Data Framework

Lead Delivery Managers are accountable for effective delivery of groups of products and are responsible for the recruitment and performance management of delivery managers within their area. They also remain ‘hands-on’, supporting high-priority product delivery.

Lead Delivery Managers define and implement standards and processes for delivery and are experienced in leading multidisciplinary teams that build, support and continuously improve products of significant scale and complexity.

As a Lead Delivery Manager, you will have a proven ability in successfully delivering large software development projects/programmes. This is a high-impact role where you will be building, maintaining and motivating teams; protecting them and making sure the teams in your area collaborate effectively. You’ll coach teams and facilitate a culture of continuous improvement, proactively managing dependencies and risks to overcome obstacles to delivery.

As an Agile delivery leader in our organisation, you will have a proven record of working with senior leaders, stakeholders and third parties to drive agile transformations at an organisational level. You will be part of our digital delivery leadership community driving cultural and procedural change and embedding Agile approaches and ways of working. With a strong background as a Scrum Master or Agile Coach (or similar roles) you will primarily focus on delivery strategy, while supporting the creation of self-organising and high-performing teams, supported closely by Senior Delivery Managers.

You will have the ability and experience of establishing/driving Agile delivery/transformations, through a solid coaching background. As well as demonstrating your leadership qualities in building new teams through hiring of FTEs but also using managed services suppliers.

To learn more about being part of the delivery community in MoJ, please watch some of these videos from Lianne, Nic and Harry, or read a recent blog.

The Team

Prisons Digital are responsible for the design, delivery & support of digital services & software within our prison's estate. The things we build are used by prison staff, prisoners, their friends & family members, other government departments & the private sector.

You’ll receive a range of excellent benefits when you join our department, including:

• A generous employer pension contribution of 28.97% through the Civil Service Pension Scheme.
• 25 days of annual leave, (increasing to 30 days once you have reached 5 years of service), plus 8 bank holidays and a privilege day for the King’s birthday.
• Flexible working arrangements including hybrid working, working part time or compressed hours. Designed to support a positive work–life balance.

You can find more details of the Benefits we offer here. To help picture your life at MoJ Justice Digital, Data and Science please take a look at our blog.

Key Responsibilities:

• Build and lead an Agile Delivery Management function with approximately 15 Delivery Managers managing upwards of 50 digital products.
• Accountability for product implementation planning with the associated product managers ensuring backlog items are addressed and prioritised alongside other deliverables.
• Lead project planning and work closely with the Lead Product Manager ensuring MVPs are clearly defined and value slicing is optimised for delivery.
• Line management and coaching of Senior Delivery Managers.
• Responsibility for managing the contingent labour or other 3rd party suppliers. who augment the civil service workforce, ensuring 3rd party resources are managed effectively and in line with the contractual obligation.
• Tracking and reporting of KPIs such as cycle time, throughput/velocity, bug arrival/departure rates, progress against roadmap, project delivery forecasting etc, across a group of products.
• Managing escalations to senior leadership. As a senior level professional, providing effective interface with the highest levels within the organisation and bringing strategic value to the relationship.
• Defining and monitoring policies and procedures for the Delivery Management profession.
• Responsibility for contract and budget management working closely with the Commercial and Finance teams to appropriately manage public finances.
• Coordinating the teams' project plans, roadmaps, risk assessments, sprint boards and retrospective lessons to ensure usefulness, engagement, accountability and predictability.
• Optimising the teams' backlog, ensuring it has enough buffer, correct priorities, stories are well understood, have adequate acceptance criteria in alignment with definition of ready.
• Developing, guiding and improving process related ceremonies (refinement, planning, standups, demos and retrospectives).

If this feels like an exciting challenge, something you are enthusiastic about, and want to join our team please read on and apply!

Person Specification

Essential

• Agile and Lean practices (skill level: expert) You know how to coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices. You are a recognised expert that advocates these approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team. You can create or tailor new ways of working; you are always innovating.
• Commercial management (skill level: expert) You can act as the escalation point and resolve large or high-risk commercial management issues. You know how to coach others in appropriate commercial management.
• Communication skills (skill level: expert) 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.
• Life-cycle perspective (skill level: expert) 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 (skill level: expert) You know how to optimize the delivery flow of teams. You 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 (skill level: expert) You can identify and challenge organizational processes of increasing complexity and those processes that are unnecessarily complicated. You can add value and can coach the organization to inspect and adapt processes. You know how to guide teams through the implementation of a new process.
• Planning (skill level: expert) 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 (skill level: expert) 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 decisions characterised by high levels of risk, impact and complexity. You know how to build consensus between organisations (private or public) or highly independent 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 strong mediation skills. You can coach an organisation on team dynamics and conflict resolution.

Willingness to be assessed against the requirements for BPSS clearance

We welcome the unique contribution diverse applicants bring and do not discriminate based on culture, ethnicity, race, nationality or national origin, age, sex, gender identity or expression, religion or belief, disability status, sexual orientation, educational or social background or any other factor.

Our values are Purpose, Humanity, Openness and Together. Find out more here about how we celebrate diversity and an inclusive culture in our workplace.

The Civil Service is committed to attract, retain and invest in talent wherever it is found. To learn more please see the Civil Service People Plan and the Civil Service D&I Strategy.

Salary Information**

Base salary for this role is from £75,674 – £85,257 (London) and from £71,381 – £80,419 (National)

• New entrants to the Civil Service joining the MoJ are expected to start at the minimum of the pay band.
• Existing Civil Servants moving on a level transfer will retain their current base salary or move to the minimum of the pay band for the role, whichever is higher.
• Existing Civil Servants who are promoted will either move to the bottom of the new grade’s pay band or receive a 10% uplift, whichever provides the greater increase.
• Candidates may also be eligible for a non‑pensionable Government Digital & Data Allowance of up to £4,801 per year (London). This is a temporary allowance, reviewed annually and may be retained, amended, or withdrawn.

The final offer will reflect the skills and experience you demonstrate during the assessment process.

How to Apply

In Justice Digital, Data and Science, we recruit using a combination of the Government Digital and Data Profession Capability and Success Profiles Frameworks. We shall assess a combination of your Experience, Technical skills and Behaviours during the assessment process.

Stage 1 - Application and sift:

To apply for this position, you must submit the following as part of your application:

• A CV detailing your career history (including any relevant qualifications). Your CV will be assessed against the essential criteria outlined within the Person Specification of this advert.
• A Personal Statement (no more than 500 words) which should outline your experience and skills, giving clear examples of work undertaken. It should specifically address the following 3 criteria listed below, using a separate paragraph for each.

• “Agile and Lean practices”
• “Team dynamics and collaboration”
• “Maintaining delivery momentum”

Candidates who do not adhere to the Personal Statement directions above may be rejected on this basis.

A diverse sift panel will review the information in your CV and Personal Statement to assess the sift criteria specified above. We operate an anonymous shortlisting process. Please ensure your CV and Personal Statement do not include your name or any other identifying details.

Should we receive a high volume of applications, a pre-sift based on “Agile and Lean practices” will be conducted before the sift.

Please access the following link for guidance on how to apply - Application Guidance

Stage 2 - Interviews:

Successful candidates who meet the required standard will then be invited to a panel interview held via Microsoft Teams. At interview stage, you will be assessed against the following Success Profile elements - Experience, Technical and the following Behaviours:

• Communicating and Influencing
• Leadership
• Delivering at Pace
• Changing and Improving

As part of your interview, you will be asked to deliver a presentation that assesses your experience with “Team dynamics and collaboration” Further details will be provided if successful at sift.

Appointments are made strictly in merit order. In the event that two or more candidates receive identical interview scores, the Leadership Behaviour will be applied as the primary lead criterion to determine the final merit order.

Should you be unsuccessful in the role that you have applied for but demonstrate the capability for a role at a lower level, we reserve the right to discuss this opportunity with you and offer you the position without needing a further application.

A reserve list may be held for up to 12 months, from which further appointments may be made.

Use of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence can be a useful tool to support your application, however, all examples and statements provided must be truthful, factually accurate and taken directly from your own experience. Where plagiarism has been identified (presenting the ideas and experiences of others, or generated by artificial intelligence, as your own) applications may be withdrawn and internal candidates may be subject to disciplinary action. Please see our candidate guidance for more information on appropriate and inappropriate use.

Terms & Conditions

Please review our Terms and Conditions which set out how we recruit and provide further information related to the role and salary arrangements.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact digitalanddatarecruitment@justice.gov.uk