| Job description | Job title – Agile Delivery Manager
Location: London
Salary: c£75,000 plus civil service employer pension contribution of 28%.
About the National Audit Office
The National Audit Office (NAO) is the UK’s main public sector audit body. Independent of government, we have responsibility for auditing the accounts of various public sector bodies, examining the propriety of government spending, assessing risks to financial control and accountability, and reviewing the economy, efficiency and effectiveness of programmes, projects, and activities. We report directly to Parliament, through the Committee of Public Accounts of the House of Commons which uses our reports as the basis of its own investigations. We employ approx. 1,000 people, most of whom are qualified accountants, trainees, or technicians. The organisation comprises two service lines: financial audit, and value for money (VFM) audit and has a strong core of highly talented corporate teams.
The NAO welcomes applications from everyone. We value diversity in all its forms and the difference it makes to our organisation. By removing barriers and creating an inclusive culture all our people can develop and maximise their full potential. As members of the Business Disability Forum and the Disability Confident Scheme we guarantee to interview all disabled applicants who meet the minimum criteria.
The NAO supports flexible working and is happy to discuss this with you at application stage.
Context and main purpose of the job:
Introduction:
The Agile Delivery Manager is an existing role within the NAO’s Digital Services (DS) function, with responsibility for delivering the data and technology elements of digital products utilised by the NAO’s service lines. The role includes the delivery of emerging technology solutions to enhance the NAO’s digital capabilities.
The postholder will work across the audit technology and emerging technology functions, to enable the automation or acceleration of relevant NAO processes and derive deeper insights from corporate and client data. These are functions are expanding to support organisational objectives, and this role is key to ensuring we provide appropriate digital products to enable success.
At this role level, you will:
build and maintain teams, ensuring they are motivated, collaborating and working well
identify obstacles and help the team to overcome them
focus the team on what is most important to the delivery of products and services
encourage and facilitate continuous improvement of the delivery team
coach and mentor both team members and others to apply the most appropriate Agile and Lean tools and techniques
The complexity or breadth of products or teams will vary in this role, depending on the context.
This role requires regular attendance at the NAO’s office either in Victoria, London, or at the office in Newcastle.
Responsibilities of the role:
You are responsible for planning, leading, organising, and managing the performance of delivery teams, ensuring the effective delivery of complex, high-risk products and services within agreed timelines, cost, and quality standards. These products may involve multiple teams and require integration and dependency management with activities outside the agile teams and the programme.
In this role, your responsibilities will include:
Defining and executing the overall delivery roadmap and project plan to manage successful, high-value delivery across multiple workstreams and external dependencies, achieving strategic goals and outcomes.
Developing a project management approach that is suitable for planning and managing efforts, employing best practices in agile project management disciplines.
Taking a consultative approach to establish the appropriate people, processes, and tools to enhance team efficiency and effectiveness.
Building and coaching teams, ensuring they are motivated, collaborating effectively, and working efficiently to enable continuous improvement and optimise programme team performance.
Being a skilled team leader capable of confidently communicating with the programme team, working with other leaders to promote effective cross-functional delivery, and engaging senior stakeholders (both digital and non-digital).
Proactively managing internal and external dependencies and risks, resolving issues, overcoming obstacles, and maximising value against constraints.
Owning and managing workstream scope, appropriately challenging and pushing back to drive overall project completion while managing change effectively.
Ensuring the delivery of new products or services meets the required quality levels, is on time, and remains within budget, in accordance with the programme plan and governance arrangements.
Driving collaboration and transparency across programme deliverables, ensuring delivery progress is visible to programme leadership and stakeholders, and developing the necessary documentation.
Mentoring, coaching, or line managing members of the delivery community, sharing experience and knowledge, especially in implementing new processes and building new teams with minimal experience.
Establishing and utilising commercial frameworks and financial controls to manage suppliers based on performance, accountability, and mutual success.
Key skills / competencies required
The skill sets listed also include the corresponding skill level (awareness, working, practitioner, expert):
Agile Working: You can coach and lead teams in Agile and Lean practices, determining the right approach for the team to take and evaluating this through the life of a project. You can think of new and innovative ways of working to achieve the right outcomes and act as a recognised expert and advocate for the approaches, continuously reflecting and challenging the team. (Skill level: Expert)
Commercial Management: You can act as the point of contact for contracted suppliers understanding how and when third parties should be brought into digital, data and technology projects. (Skill level: Working)
Communicating between the technical and non-technical: You can listen to the needs of the technical and business stakeholders, and interpret them. You effectively manage stakeholder expectations, using active and reactive communication. You can support or host difficult discussions within the team, or with diverse senior stakeholders. (Skill level: Practitioner)
Financial Management: You can balance cost versus value, consider the impact of user needs and report on financial delivery. You can monitor cost and budgets and understand how and when to escalate issues. You can input into business cases and can communicate business-value propositions. (Skill level: Practitioner)
Lifecycle Perspective: You can recognise when to move from one stage of a product lifecycle to another. You can ensure the team is working towards the appropriate service standards for the relevant phase, while managing the delivery of products and services throughout each phase. (Skill level: working)
Maintaining Delivery Momentum: You can facilitate the delivery flow of a team, managing the pace and tempo. You can actively address internal and external risks, issues and dependencies including where ownership exists outside the team. (Skill level: Practitioner)
Making a Process Work: You can identify and challenge organisational processes of increasing complexity and those processes that are unnecessarily complicated. You can add value, coach the organisation to inspect and adapt processes, and guide teams through the implementation of a new process. (Skill level: Expert)
Planning: You can understand the environment and prioritise the most important or high valve tasks, using data to inform planning and provide delivery confidence. You can manage complex internal and external dependencies, remove blockers or impediments that affect plans and can develop a plan for difficult situations. You can ensure that teams plan appropriately for their capacity. (Skill level: Practitioner)
Team Dynamics and Collaboration: You can effectively bring people together to form a motivated team, helping to create the right environment for a team to work in and empower them to deliver. You can recognise and deal with issues while helping to create the best team makeup depending on the situation. (Skill level: Working)
Experience
Proven track record in delivering complex projects in agile environments: Demonstrates a strong background in managing and successfully delivering intricate projects using agile methodologies. This includes experience in software development or digital projects that drive significant business change and improvements.
Expertise in blending traditional project management principles with agile methodologies: Skilled in integrating conventional project management practices with agile approaches to enhance business and delivery processes. This includes applying effective project governance, such as reporting, managing risks and dependencies, handling change controls, working with third parties, and conducting post-implementation reviews.
Strong leadership and coaching abilities: Capable of leading and mentoring cross-functional teams, fostering professional and technical development, and demonstrating situational leadership. This involves guiding teams through challenges and ensuring continuous improvement in their performance and skills.
Excellent communication and stakeholder management skills: Experienced in effectively communicating with and influencing senior stakeholders, both digital and non-digital. This includes managing risks, dependencies, and change controls, as well as challenging and coaching the organization to adapt to new methodologies and practices. |
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