Role Title: Business Readiness Delivery Support
Duration: 3 month contract
Location: Telford, Hybrid 2 days per week onsite
Rate: up to £450 p/d Umbrella inside IR35
Clearance required: Active SC Clearance is required
Role purpose / summary
Lead the planning, coordination and execution of business readiness activities for a complex government programme/project to ensure new capabilities are usable, safe, and adoptable across operational areas. You will own readiness planning, coordinate UAT/BAT (User/Business Acceptance Testing), manage change impacts, training and communications, and lead go-live preparation and transition to BAU. You will provide visible leadership across multidisciplinary teams and suppliers, enabling delivery at pace with a focus on user outcomes, service stability and benefits realisation.
Key Responsibilities
* Business Readiness Planning & Governance · Define and maintain the Business Readiness Plan, roadmap and acceptance criteria, aligned to programme milestones and benefits.
* Establish and operate readiness governance (readiness forums, checkpoints, go/no-go criteria, cutover and contingency plans).
* Create and maintain readiness dashboards and evidence packs for Programme Boards and SROs.
Change Impact & Adoption
* Lead change impact assessments across teams, roles, locations and suppliers; identify policy, process, people, data and technology impacts.
* Develop adoption strategies, including operating model updates, SOPs/work instructions, service desk readiness and business continuity arrangements.
* Ensure benefits realisation assumptions are reflected in adoption plans and tracked post-go-live.
UAT/BAT Leadership
* Define the UAT/BAT strategy and approach (scope, entry/exit criteria, traceability to requirements, scenarios, roles and environments).
* Coordinate test preparation (test scripts, data, environments), defect triage and prioritisation, and readiness sign-off with business owners.
* Ensure evidence and audit trails meet assurance and regulatory needs; integrate UAT/BAT outcomes into go/live readiness decisions.
* Training, Communications & Stakeholder Management · Own the training needs analysis (TNA), curriculum, materials and delivery approach (classroom, digital, "train-the-trainer").
* Develop and run the communications plan-clear messages, timing and channels for different user groups; measure awareness and readiness.
* Engage credibly with senior leaders and unions/staff associations (where relevant); provide evidence-based recommendations and challenge where plans are not ready.
* Go-Live, Cutover & Early Life Support (ELS)
* Lead cutover planning, rehearsals and command-and-control; maintain contingency and rollback plans.
* Coordinate Early Life Support-stabilisation metrics, hypercare processes, incident/defect management and exit criteria to BAU.
* Capture lessons learned and embed continuous improvement into subsequent releases.
Risk, Assurance & Controls
* Maintain a robust RAID regime for readiness and adoption risks/issues; ensure mitigations are owned, funded and time-bound.
* Prepare for and respond to assurance reviews (e.g., Gateway/IPA), audits and policy/compliance checks; track actions to closure.
* Ensure data protection, security and accessibility considerations are embedded in readiness criteria.
Data, MI & Tooling
* Operate a single source of truth for readiness MI (readiness RAGs, training completion, UAT/BAT pass rates, cutover rehearsals, ELS metrics).
* Optimise tooling (e.g., SharePoint/Confluence, Project for the Web/MS Project, Azure DevOps/Jira, Power BI) and drive data quality and automation.
* Align readiness data with schedule, financials and benefits to support decision-quality insight.
Essential Skills & Experience
* Substantial UK government experience in a similar role within a complex programme/project environment involving multiple stakeholders and suppliers.
* Dynamic, visible leadership with the ability to influence across multidisciplinary teams (with line management responsibility for G7 and below where applicable).
* Proven delivery at pace, coordinating concurrent readiness workstreams and releases.
* Confidence to challenge and influence senior leaders, presenting clear evidence, risks and trade-offs.
* Ownership and problem-solving: identifies readiness gaps early, designs pragmatic recovery plans and delivers positive outcomes.
* Track record in role-modelling delivery excellence and coaching others in readiness, change and testing disciplines.
* Excellent written and verbal communication, producing clear plans, board papers and user-facing guidance with strong attention to detail.
* Hands-on experience of UAT/BAT methods and business readiness frameworks, flexing Agile/Waterfall/Hybrid approaches to suit delivery priorities.
* Willing and able to travel regularly across sites, user locations and supplier premises.
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