Agile Delivery Manager - Contract

An Agile Delivery Manager is accountable for the delivery of products and services through a multi-disciplinary, highly skilled digital team. They are servant leaders who build, maintain, and motivate teams, ensuring there is an iterative plan to work towards. By protecting the team and making sure it collaborates, communicates, and focuses on what is most important, you will help us deliver significant value to the citizens of Barbados.

You'll coach team members, facilitate continuous improvement, and apply the most appropriate agile and lean tools and techniques for the environment. This role requires experience in managing dependencies, risks, budgets, and people to overcome obstacles and get the best value against constraints.

About the team

The GovTech Barbados team is responsible for developing multi-disciplinary, user-centered digital teams within the Government of Barbados. Our goals are twofold: first, we want to deliver tangible impact to citizens through excellent public service design and delivery. Second, we want to build a sustainable and enduring digital mindset, skillset, and culture within the government.

It’s an exciting time to join us as we accelerate our delivery phase. We are taking an agile, lean approach to this work, learning as we go from our end-users, public servants, and global experts in digital transformation.

About the role

As an Agile Delivery Manager, you're a:

• Leader: You will lead the delivery of new digital services that support and improve access to essential services for the people of Barbados.
• Collaborator: You'll work as part of a multi-disciplinary team to shape and deliver exciting new services. This team will include a product manager, user researcher, developers, and relevant subject matter experts from across the government. Since the team will be newly formed, you’ll have a great opportunity to shape its culture and ways of working.
• Agile and Lean Practitioner: You have experience delivering agile projects with multi-disciplinary teams, maintaining and iterating products over time to continuously meet user needs. You'll be confident in planning and delivery, including managing risks and dependencies. You’ll set up the agile environment the team needs and coach them on agile ways of working. Experience setting up new teams and working with those new to agile, user-centered design is highly beneficial.
• Coach: You can support team members and government subject matter experts to confidently use new tools and techniques. You'll act as an advocate for agile and digital ways of working.
• Accessible communicator: You can communicate effectively across organizational, technical, and political boundaries, explaining tactical choices simply and clearly. You make complex and technical information accessible for non-technical audiences and can advocate for the team to create trust and authenticity.
• Software delivery expert: You have experience delivery-managing a team developing software at different stages of the product lifecycle. You know how to set up and support development teams to deliver user-centered products and services.

We are a new team committed to working in the open and building an equitable working environment. There will be plenty of scope to influence how you interpret the role and shape the team culture as we grow.

Key responsibilities

• Support the team to deliver projects and products using appropriate agile methodologies, learning and iterating frequently.
• Coach team members and others to apply agile and lean principles.
• Manage a multidisciplinary team, ensuring they are motivated, collaborating, and working well.
• Lead the collaborative and dynamic planning process, prioritizing work against the team's capacity and ensuring the team remains focused.
• Identify and help the team overcome obstacles and blockers.
• Work with the Product Manager to define the product roadmap and translate this into an achievable backlog.
• Run the team’s ceremonies, including sprint planning, stand-ups, and retrospectives, to maintain open communication and continuous learning.

Essential attributes

• Agile environment: You can set up the agile environment a team needs to design, build, and iterate on a user-centered service. You have deep knowledge of and can lead on a range of agile tools and techniques.
• Servant leadership: You enable and empower the team, helping them become better at autonomously organizing their own work.
• Problem-solving: You help the Product Manager and the team break down complex problems into smaller units and user stories. You can help the team visualize user journeys and simplify their mental models of services.
• Facilitation: You can facilitate the work of the team, lead the collaborative planning process, and guide groups toward a common goal.
• Delivery focus: You know how to give the team a rhythm and momentum to deliver effectively. You're adept at navigating the organization to remove blockers that impede delivery.
• Communication: You are a strong communicator between technical and non-technical people and can communicate effectively across organizational boundaries. You can make complex information simple and accessible to non-technical audiences.
• Visual thinking: You are a visual thinker who is not afraid to sketch things out to aid understanding.

Contract details

• Contract duration: One (1) year, with potential to extend
• Pay commensurate with qualifications and experience will be offered
• We prefer hybrid (remote and in-person) work, but we will consider entirely remote candidates

Reporting to

Mark Boyce, CEO, GovTech Barbados, or his designate

Terms of Reference

Terms of Reference for this contract are available here: Agile Delivery Manager