Senior Delivery Manager (i.AI)
About the team
Government must seize the opportunity of AI to drive outcomes in the public interest. This is of critical importance now. Government needs innovation and must not sleep on the opportunity presented by AI to drive better services for taxpayers and citizens.
In November 2023, the creation of the incubator for AI (i.AI) was announced, and following early successes, the team was expanded in March 2024. Our mission is to harness the opportunity of AI to improve lives, drive growth, and deliver better public services.This is an AI product team that focuses on delivery of technical solutions to public service challenges, responding to ministerial steers about priorities and driving impact out into departments from the centre.
i.AI delivers high impact products and is mission-led, delivering value and innovation within government. We are able to move fast and build things, and are set up specifically to pivot quickly towards priority use cases, and re-use technologies for future impact.
You can see more about our work on ai.gov.uk and on LinkedIn. We work in the open and our code can be found here: https://github.com/i-dot-ai
The Incubator for Artificial Intelligence (i.AI) will be moving to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) to form part of the new digital centre of government. If offered the position, you will be onboarded to, and initially employed by, the Cabinet Office, but will move with us to DSIT under the machinery of government change.This is expected to happen in April 2025, but this date is subject to change. If shortlisted, the hiring panel will be happy to answer any questions you might have. You're also welcome to reach out to us at i-dot-ai-recruitment@cabinetoffice.gov.uk
Our team is based across Bristol, Manchester and London, and we work in a hybrid manner as default. A minimum 60% of your working time should be spent at your principal workplace, although requirements to attend other locations for official business will also count towards this level of attendance.We will consider part-time and flexible working arrangements - we encourage you to discuss your needs with the hiring manager if you are offered the role.
About the role
The Senior Delivery Manager will work closely with the Head of Delivery to ensure the team has everything they need to deliver efficiently. They will be working with stakeholders to understand needs and plan how these can be delivered. We are looking for someone who will build good working relationships to get the work done.
Our project teams vary from a team of 2 or 3 scoping an idea to a full multidisciplinary team. As a Senior Delivery Manager you will adapt your work to meet the needs of the team. For example in scoping you will be very involved in understanding the feasibility and value of doing a new piece of work.As the project progresses you will adapt to unblocking problems for the team and empowering them to deliver.
Being flexible and passionate about getting things done are essential, this will be a varied role and we need someone who’s keen to adapt to what’s needed.
Information session
To give you an idea of working in i.AI and to answer any questions you might have, we encourage you to attend our information session on Monday 28th October at 12:30. Please email us at i-dot-ai-recruitment@cabinetoffice.gov.uk and we'll send you a link to join.
Role Responsibilities- Designing appropriate agile practices for teams in the incubator based on their needs and the work
- Supporting the team by running planning sessions, retrospectives and daily stand-ups
- Work to proactively remove blockers to delivery, reconciling differences within the team and ensuring that stakeholder expectations are aligned
- Coaching and mentoring others in approaches to agile delivery
- Managing dependencies between projects and escalating issues you or the team identify
- Managing risks, commercials and budgets to ensure resources are used efficiently
- Working with the team to ensure products are scoped appropriately to deliver a MVP that meets stakeholder’s and user’s needs while maintaining focus on prototyping
- Identifying, sourcing and managing the tools needed for the team
- Line managing people to enable to deliver their best work
- Supporting with the creation of business cases as required for the team’s work
- Proactively finding opportunities to make the team more inclusive and supporting the team’s well being
- Managing the commercials of the product or service, including procuring services
- Embedding user-centred ways of working in the team and across the incubator
- Support the effective performance of the team by promoting diversity, inclusion, regular, honest and constructive feedback, and supporting continuous improvement