K8 Delivery Manager at Kerridge Commercial Systems South Africa

The Delivery Manager at KCS requires a variety of skills and experience in software development as they take on Product Owner, Development Management and Scrum Master responsibilities.

Team Backlog Management

Key Responsibilities:

• Communicates with stakeholders – product managers, project managers, and the development team to make sure the goals are clear and the vision is aligned with business objectives
• Ensures the delivery team stays on track regardless of the agile nature of software development projects
• Manages and refines the backlog for the team in alignment with the Product Manager or Head of Product
• Grooms the backlog on a weekly basis to ensure highest priority items are clearly outlined and defined
• Monitors and track the teams’ progress against the priority backlog items
• Ensures that Epics and Stories meet the definition of ready before the item is prioritised on the backlog
• Evaluate and reviews the definition of done of all items before these items are flagged to go into the release

Delivery Management

• Leads the execution of delivery objectives against development objectives
• Manages a team of Engineers and QA’s to deliver product roadmap and project milestones
• Works closely with the Head of Delivery to ensure product delivery teams are aligned with product objectives and successfully execute against product roadmap milestones
• Tracks and monitors revenue and value achievement against product and project objectives with a clear understanding of the role Delivery plays in achieving overall business success
• Monitors and tracks delivery quality against the standards set by the Head of Delivery: coding standards, technical specifications, code reviews and code quality metrics.
• Works with Product, Project Leads and the Head of Delivery Lead to understand product scope and assign solution design time to further analyse and break down product requirements
• Pro-actively communicates the impact and risks associated with delivery execution against roadmap objectives
• Actively takes decisions on a daily basis to re-align priorities and focus the team on the right objectives

Agile Team Management

• Acts as a scrum master for the team by leading and coaching the team in agile methodologies and best practices
• Facilitates collaboration and engagement by using various tools to ensure software is delivered effectively
• Maintains a high-level view, helping teams to understand both organizational and technical dependencies while avoiding chokepoints.
• Creates a culture of accountability and enables teams to meet critical deadlines.
• Hosts daily team meetings to get updates on the progress of the project, address potential roadblocks, and ensure that the project is on track
• Engages with the Head of Delivery, Product and Projects to share updates with product stakeholders about how the project is progressing (or not).
• Takes overall responsibility to ensure that the team is meeting deadlines with the desired outcome

Implements Effective Tools

• Implements best practice for the management of code and test cases in collaboration with the Head of Delivery
• Implements techniques such as “pair programming”, code reviews and others
• Implements and advocates practices to reduce development time and improve the architecture and quality of the product.

JIRA Management

• Updates team backlogs, priorities and activities for the team in JIRA
• Ensures that features are decomposed to Epics and Stories
• Ensures that stories and epic statuses are updated with the correct and relevant status
• Defines dashboards and tracking tools in JIRA and are able to give a status update on progress on request

Experience & Knowledge

Key Requirements:

• Experience in running development teams in executing against roadmap objectives or financial targets
• Experience in the software development industry and what it means to deliver software solutions against roadmap objectives
• Proven success in the implementation of agile and scrum methodologies and best practices
• Ability to communicate it in a clear, engaging manner.
• Ability to utilise JIRA to track, monitor and report on team progress

Skills & Qualities

• Understands the nature of product development and delivery from a product and service based business model
• Have an in-depth understanding of product owner, scrum master and delivery manager responsibilities and is able to utilise this understanding to effectively execute against priorities
• Understands the importance of being two, three or four steps ahead of decisions and how their decisions can impact the delivery of a release or product feature
• The ability to work through complex problems and scenarios, and make them easy to understand for other people
• Able to influence team collaboration and bridge the gap between the concept of the project and the actions required to complete it