Overview
The Delivery Lead leads a team of delivery professionals responsible for ensuring the successful execution of product initiatives across the organisation. This strategic leadership role bridges the gap between product vision and operational execution, providing critical oversight of delivery processes while nurturing a high-performing team of agile practitioners. The Delivery Lead is the delivery authority for the product area, ensuring transparent, risk-managed, and efficient delivery of product plans while championing agile best practices. The Delivery Lead partners closely with the Head of Product and other key stakeholders to maintain alignment between delivery activities and organisational objectives. You will have exceptional leadership abilities, deep agile expertise, and strong stakeholder management skills, creating an environment where delivery managers can thrive, continuously improve, and deliver maximum value to the organisation.
Main Duties And Responsibilities
* Provide oversight of the delivery landscape for a product area, supporting the Head of Product with a summary view (and other key stakeholders, as required), in real time, to enable and ensure the successful execution of product delivery plans.
* Identify and manage risks and issues that span across the product area, acting as an escalation point for the delivery team and to support unblocking issues, escalating to the Head of Product as appropriate.
* Lead an agile delivery team, providing coaching and mentor support to enable and empower the team to success; be a role model of agile delivery best practice, identifying and providing continuous development and training opportunities for the team.
* Drive delivery performance across the team, identifying and implementing process improvements, sharing best practices, and refining agile frameworks across teams and within the Delivery Community of Practice.
* Build an ecosystem for delivery success by creating an environment that empowers Delivery Managers to self-organise and provide coaching to unlock further value
* Coordinate and manage delivery planning, sprint cycles, and delivery schedules across the product area, driving best practice and working closely with the Portfolio team and other product areas to ensure platform level oversight and consistency.
* Manage change budget and resources across the portfolio of delivery for a product area.
* Ensure clear and timely progress communications with stakeholders at all levels, managing expectations throughout the delivery cycle; represent delivery at steering groups and other governance boards as required.
* Carry out other duties, commensurate with the grade and remit of the post.
Person Specification
Our diverse community of staff and students recognises the unique abilities, backgrounds, and beliefs of all. We foster a culture where everyone feels they belong and is respected. Even if your past experience doesn\'t match perfectly with this role\'s criteria, your contribution is valuable, and we encourage you to apply. Please ensure that you reference the application criteria in the application statement when you apply.
Essential Criteria
* Demonstrated ability to manage complex delivery landscapes and provide real-time visibility across product areas.
* Strong experience identifying, managing, and mitigating delivery risks and issues across multiple workstreams.
* Proven track record of leading, coaching, and developing high-performing agile delivery teams.
* Deep understanding of agile methodologies and best practices, with the ability to role model and champion these approaches.
* Exceptional communication skills with experience managing expectations and delivering clear updates to stakeholders at all levels.
* Strong ability to coordinate delivery planning, sprint cycles, and schedules across a product area.
* Experience managing change budgets and resources across a portfolio of delivery initiatives.
* Demonstrated capability to unblock issues and facilitate solutions to complex delivery challenges.
* Ability to ensure delivery activities remain aligned with broader organisational objectives.
* Commitment to driving ongoing performance improvements and creating a culture of learning and development.
Further Information
* Grade 8
* Salary £48,822-£58,225 per annum with the potential to progress to £65,509
* Work arrangement Full-time
* Line manager Head of Product
* Direct reports Delivery Managers, Project Managers
* Our website https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/it-services/about (opens in new window)
For informal enquiries about this job contact Sarah Boyd, Assistant Director for Product Delivery, at s.l.boyd@sheffield.ac.uk
Closing Date: 09/11/2025
We are a Disability Confident Employer. If you have a disability and meet the essential criteria for this job you will be invited to take part in the next stage of the selection process.
We are the University of Sheffield. This is our vision: sheffield.ac.uk/vision (opens in new window).
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