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Head of Delivery

Our Head of Delivery is central in ensuring the successful delivery of client projects.

This permanent role involves the oversight of projects, as well as leading and coaching the Delivery team in our industry-leading Agile delivery practice.

Projects

We work on challenging and diverse projects for an exceptional portfolio of clients. The quality of our delivery is something that we are very proud of and that we have worked hard to achieve.

A central part of the role will be providing support and guidance to deliver successfully for our clients. This will involve oversight, stakeholder engagement, ways of working support, casting, and intervening when necessary to help teams address delivery issues. You’ll be experienced in understanding trade offs and suitability of different approaches, methods and practices for different scenarios, and you’ll work closely with the Delivery Coaches and Business Team to ensure that our projects are set up for success.

• Oversees all project set-up & kick-offs, to ensure projects are off to a good start
• Checks in regularly with projects (delivery coaches, client leads, technical leads, product leads, whole teams, etc.) to unearth project issues early.
• Is the first point of escalation for project issues and works to resolve them with the team, the various project leads, and client stakeholders where necessary; escalates further as appropriate
• Proactively builds relationships with client stakeholders and is available to provide guidance, issue resolution and comfort
• Supports the process of casting delivery coaches by consulting with them and providing input to the Resource Manager
• Contributes to new business activities, particularly pitch development and pitch delivery
• Reviews all Statements of Work before they are sent to the client to ensure ways of working, scope, deliverables, timelines and dependencies are set up for success.

Practice

Ustwo continues to be an industry leader in its Agile delivery practice. It is one of our unique selling propositions. We need to be relentless at improving how we apply our approaches, and at developing better ways to efficiently deliver world class client work. In this role you are central to ensuring that happens in collaboration with the other heads of discipline.

• Is a champion for the mindset of contemporary ways of working (e.g. user-centred design, being transparent, delivering value early and often, collaboration, learning mindset, incremental and iterative delivery, etc.)
• Supports and fosters a client mindset in the studio
• Stays current on tools and techniques related to Agile ways of working (e.g. Lean, Lean UX, Google Design Sprints, Scrum, Kanban, LeSS, User Story Mapping, BDD, TDD, CI, etc.) and Team Dynamics
• Is the go-to person to provide ways of working content for pitches, and support delivery of pitches where needed, particularly for build-oriented projects
• Shares their knowledge generously and freely with the delivery coaches, the studio and the company
• Supports efforts to optimise and codify our ways of working
• Ensures delivery coach weeklies are supportive, productive and valuable

People

The Head of Delivery manages and leads a team of Delivery Coaches. The team size varies between 5-10, mixed between permanent and temporary staff, depending on how busy the studio is.

• Leads the career progression process for Delivery Coaches
• Helps identify opportunities to grow and build on strengths
• Supports all Delivery Coaches in having a clearly set development goals
• Co-creates plans to improve skills, behaviours and mindset
• Leads recruitment of new Delivery Coaches (contractors/permanents)
• Builds morale and motivation with teams who are facing tough challenges
• Anticipates areas that need development to face future challenges
• Supports the exchange of knowledge and experiences within the delivery coach team, within the London studio and across other studios
• Supports the delivery coaches in supporting each other
• Brings exceptional people skills, adept at navigating difficult conversations and not shying away from giving constructive and clear feedback in a way that is respectful and situationally aware. Encourages the team to do the same and feel confident in creating a culture of giving and receiving constructive feedback.

Leadership

• Is the voice of delivery coaches to the leadership team, ensuring that our coaches feel heard and know that their wishes are meaningfully represented in the most important decisions we make as a business.
• Ensures that the delivery coach team is clear about our strategic direction. They also ensure the coaches understand how they contribute to the success of that strategy.
• Helps us to balance the needs of the business, our clients, and our people, as together we translate our strategy into action
• Supports where helpful in winning new work
• Collaborates effectively with the other Principals/Head’s of/Client Partners in delivering against critical metrics for our business
• Contributes to ustwo maintaining a positive, progressive and inclusive working culture, exemplifying our values

Direct reports

Delivery coaches. The team varies in size between 5-10 mixed between temporary and permanent staff

Our requirements

You Must...

• Be an expert in the areas of Agile delivery and Team Dynamics
• Have agency experience
• Be able to support teams to problem solve, and confident to intervene when necessary
• Adept at understanding how to “meet clients where they are” regarding delivery processes (traditional versus Agile)
• Able to communicate persuasively to people at all levels about the value and benefits of our ways of working
• Be able to deliver difficult messages with grace, respect and fairness.
• Understand the balance that is required to strike between “studio-first”, “team-first”, and “client-first”
• Have experience of managing and supporting direct reports between 5-10 people

The way we work

Sold on the idea that strong, genuine relationships lead to creating great products and services for clients.

• Always finding ways to Raise the Bar by being someone who wants to develop and develop others.
• Understands the big picture and will always balance the needs of our people with the needs of our clients and the needs of the business.
• Highly collaborative and transparent. You're not a sole contributor, but rather someone who will work with and foster “team” where sharing knowledge and experience is second nature in order to grow together. In doing this you will ensure that you and your team Learn Together.
• Never afraid to speak your mind, and are exceptionally clear when you do. You will Be Human with this voice, and will ensure that your comments are always fair, considered and respectful.
• Naturally motivated and self-driven. Your curiosity cannot be quelled, and you will Use the Freedom of this role to never stop learning and take initiative to change and improve things.
• Someone with gravitas and influence to deal with all levels within ustwo London and clients.
• Bring energy, passion and optimism to your role and you will ensure that you and those around you Enjoy the Journey.

Salary: £85,000 p.a. - £110,000 p.a.