Agile Practice Manager (12 month FTC)

About Vonage: Vonage is a global cloud communications business that offers flexible and scalable voice, messaging, video and data capabilities across Unified Communications, Contact Centres and Communications APIs. Our mission is to drive efficiencies and build synergy across engineering, product and customer support to make customer and employees experience outstanding.

By joining Vonage’s Lean Agile Centre of Excellence, you’ll have an opportunity to shape the future of customer engagement by supporting our engineering and product teams to deliver a truly immersive platform experience.

Why this role matters

We are seeking a dynamic and pragmatic Agile Practice Manager to join our diverse global team. You will play a crucial role in supporting our Agile transformation. This is an excellent opportunity for someone with experience managing agile teams.

Vonage is entering an exciting new chapter, focused on consolidating and aligning a business that has grown and diversified through acquisition. This role will be part of the Lean Agile Center of Excellence (LACE) at Vonage. The LACE are implementing Agile at Scale across the business to help align our teams and maximize the value they deliver. 

What you will do

With the support of the LACE team you will lead and drive delivery excellence though Agile transformation across Vonage. Your role will focus on managing a strong enable delivery flow and drive Agile culture within the team.

Core responsibilities:

• Establish and Lead New Agile Release Trains (ARTs):
• Independently identify areas to establish new ARTs.
• Roll out and implement PI Planning processes in new teams or departments.
• Lead Delivery for Agile Release Trains:
• Oversee and manage delivery for one or more ARTs.
• Ensure alignment with strategic objectives and seamless execution of large programs.
• Program-Level Dependency Management:
• Identify, surface, and resolve complex dependencies across teams and ARTs.
• Drive collaboration and timely resolution of dependencies to support quarterly PI objectives.
• Ensure Continuous Flow of Backlog Items:
• Maintain a steady flow of work through prioritization and backlog management.
• Collaborate with Product and Engineering teams to resolve bottlenecks.
• Surface Issues and Risks:
• Proactively identify risks and issues impacting ART performance.
• Escalate and track resolution in collaboration with relevant stakeholders.
• Facilitate Program Increment (PI) Planning:
• Organize, lead, and continuously improve PI planning sessions.
• Ensure readiness, alignment, and tracking of PI objectives across teams.
• Drive Continuous Improvements:
• Leverage stakeholder feedback and retrospectives to enhance ART performance.
• Champion initiatives to optimize processes and delivery outcomes.
• Data-Driven ART Delivery Management:
• Surface and visualize ART metrics such as predictability, PI readiness, and delivery performance.
• Create and maintain dashboards for load vs. capacity and dependency tracking.
• Support Capacity and Priority Planning:
• Partner with stakeholders to align priority features with available capacity.
• Ensure resource optimization across ARTs.
• Document Ways of Working:
• Establish and maintain clear documentation for ART processes, tools, and dashboards.
• Provide a single repository for ART metrics, reporting, and best practices.

What you will bring

Experience in driving agile delivery and team management, reporting through Jira, enable delivery transparency

The ideal candidate must be committed to genuine Agile principles, ensuring that Scrum practices are truly effective and not just followed superficially. They should actively engage teams in meaningful Agile practices that drive real value and continuous improvement.

They will have a broad knowledge of Agile methodologies such as Scrum, Kanban and XP and will be able to demonstrate how they have implemented them in practice. 

A positive and constructive attitude towards setbacks is essential for this role. The ideal candidate will be ready to give examples of their pragmatic and outcome-driven approach as well as their resilience and creativity when facing challenges.

The successful candidate will be someone with a proven track record of identifying opportunities and taking the initiative to drive change. They should be comfortable working solo and collaborating as part of a team to achieve shared goals.

Due to the international nature of the team and the business, experience working in a multicultural setting would be beneficial.

What is required for application

Required

• Previous experience working as a Senior Release Train Engineer / Agile Practice Lead or similar
• People management experience
• Proven knowledge of Agile principles and methodologies, such as Scrum, Kanban and XP
• Experience in Jira
• Portfolio management experience 
• Strong interpersonal and communication skills, with demonstrated ability to foster teamwork and collaboration.
• Proven experience with workshops/training/1:1s you’ve run
• Detail-oriented and highly organized, capable of maintaining accurate records and tracking progress.
• Resilience and a problem-solving mindset, with a track record of not just identifying problems but also driving solutions.
• Eagerness to learn and adapt to new processes and tools
• Ability to inspect and adapt in a dynamic environment
• This is an individual contributor role

We highly value passion, a desire to learn, and a resilient work ethic. If you feel you may not yet possess all the skills listed, we still encourage you to apply.

Note: The purpose of this profile is to provide a general summary of essential responsibilities for the position and is not meant as an exhaustive list. Assignments may differ for individuals within the same role based on business conditions, departmental need or geographic location.

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