Agile Delivery Manager

About Smart Data Foundry

Smart Data Foundry has a purpose to unlock the power of financial data as a force to improve people’s lives.

What we do

We enable the research ecosystem to flourish through the provision of research ready real financial data.

We create data-driven insights based on real financial data, that identify areas to inform policy change and enhance regulation.

Role Purpose

Our Agile Delivery Manager plays a critical, collaborative and central role in ensuring that Smart Data Foundry can safely unlock the transformative power of financial data for internal, academic, public and NGO consumers.

You will thrive on adapting, collaborating and communicating with the team in a fast moving, scaling organisation that values flexibility and continuous improvement. Whether it’s working with data partners who provide their data for good, research communities driving innovation, or public sector organisations and NGOs gaining insight from our products and services, you’ll embrace change and ensure we can respond effectively to evolving needs.

You will have the agency to shape this role, leading a dynamic and adaptive planning process that balances strategic priorities with customer needs. Your ability to flex and pivot will help Smart Data Foundry stay responsive in a shifting landscape.

You will bring together understanding of the big development picture, agile ceremonies (PI planning, backlog refinement, sprint planning, daily stand-ups, etc.) and work across all functions in the business to deliver projects engaging with teams from engineering teams, data science teams on technical projects to wider company projects that involve finance, marketing or other business functions.

Responsibilities

Our Agile Delivery Manager combines delivery management skills with practical application of agile best practices:

• Works across our multi-disciplinary team, helping to ensure that products and services are delivered in a manner that supports strategic priorities and growth ambitions.
• Builds strong relationships with the Product team to define scope, timelines and schedules to ensure on-time delivery of key products and services.
• Builds strong relationships with Smart Data Foundry’s leadership team to understand strategic priorities and ensure these are reflecting, in programme and project plans, sprints and increments, flexing plans where necessary where priorities evolve or change.
• Collaborates with cross functional teams to develop and manage comprehensive project roadmaps, ensuring outline milestones, deliverables and key dependencies are aligned with evolving needs.
• Prioritises our customers and partners considering how what we deliver offers them value.
• Manages resource allocations, ensuring that projects are adequately staffed and delivered within agreed timelines.
• Manages and guides our agile processes including Programme Increment Planning, Backlog Refinement, Stand-ups, and Sprint Planning, Reviews and Retrospectives, adapting as needed to ensure the processes continue to meet the needs of a small organisation.
• Elicits the best out of team members, providing guidance for both Agile-native and Agile-newcomers, helping them navigate requirements effectively.
• Proactively removes obstacles, resolves disagreements about priorities, process and work styles and fosters an open, problem-solving culture.
• Identifies, communicates, and implements strategies to mitigate risks, dependencies and issues, minimising impact to delivery schedule and budget.
• Contributes to strategic planning sessions identifying new business opportunities and opportunities to enhance operational efficiency

Champions a culture of collaboration, curiosity, innovation, service excellence and continuous improvement within the team and with stakeholders.

Skills and Experience

Essential Skills

Proven experience leading a highly technical, cross-functional team, within a product setting.

Curiosity, a proactive approach and the desire to take accountability, shaping the role within this fast moving, scaling organisation.

Adaptability, ability to work collaboratively within a small organisation to achieve business goals.

• Experience delivering solutions and managing development teams throughout the full product lifecycle from discovery to deployment and operations – while remaining responsive to change.
• Extensive knowledge of Agile project management methodologies and tools, such as SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, and JIRA and the flexibility to apply these pragmatically and proportionally.
• Knowledge of software engineering methodologies and the SDLC, with the ability to adapt project management approaches as needed while managing scope and cost.
• High emotional intelligence, enabling effective team motivation, conflict resolution and collaboration to drive success.

Beneficial Skills

• Experience of working with cross-functional teams, including data science and software engineering teams, with an understanding of the tools and solutions they need.
• Experience of balancing the needs of data science teams and researchers with creating repeatable data engineering and operations models and processes.
• Experience of working in academia, the public sector or NGOs and understanding of how research and insights are created and consumed.
• Financial services expertise or knowledge, such as working with data science, engineering or analytics teams in financial organisations.

Additional Attributes

• Passion for sharing data for positive impact
• Ability to deal with ambiguity and respond quickly in an evolving and fast paced environment
• Ability to work autonomously under pressure, managing conflicting and changing priorities with confidence
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills, with the ability to convey complex ideas clearly
• Personable and approachable, able to develop positive working relationships at all levels within an organisation
• Ability to manage expectations of teams while exuding positivity about the ability to figure out ‘how.
• Self-motivated, proactive, and eager to take initiative.
• Collaborative, highly curious, with a desire to understand and enhance how Smart Data Foundry delivers its services
• Appreciation of the sensitive nature of the financial data held by Smart Data Foundry and the need to abide by information governance best practices.
• Strong data literacy