IT Release/Change Manager

Release Planning and Strategy

Define Release Scope and Goals Work with project managers, product owners, and other stakeholders to understand project objectives and translate them into a clear release scope, including features, bug fixes, and enhancements.
Develop Release Schedule and Timelines Create comprehensive release plans and schedules, coordinating across multiple projects or teams to ensure timely delivery and efficient resource allocation. This involves setting realistic deadlines and milestones.
Resource Coordination Collaborate with project managers, product owners and other stakeholders to identify and secure necessary resources (development, QA, operations, etc.) for each release.
Risk Management Identify potential risks and issues that could impact the release scope, schedule, or quality. Develop mitigation strategies and contingency plans to address them proactively.
Aligning Projects with Demand Release Cycles Work with product management, and business stakeholders to ensure project deliveries dependencies aligns with demand releases cycle for seamless execution
Coordination and Communication

Cross-Functional Team Alignment Facilitate communication and collaboration among development, QA, operations, product management, and other relevant teams to ensure everyone is aligned on release objectives, schedules, and dependencies.
Stakeholder Communication: Provide regular updates on release progress, status, potential risks, and changes to all stakeholders, including senior management, business users, and project teams.
Facilitate Reviews Conduct release readiness reviews, milestone reviews, and Go No Go decisions with key stakeholders to ensure the release meets quality standards and business requirements.

Execution and Oversight

Oversee Release Execution Monitor and control all release activities from development and testing to deployment and post-release support.
Manage Dependencies Identify and manage interdependencies between different components or projects within a release train.
Quality Assurance Ensure that robust quality assurance processes are followed, and all necessary testing (unit, integration, system, user acceptance) is completed before deployment.
Deployment Planning and ExecutionWork with operations teams to create detailed deployment plans, including rollback procedures, and oversee the execution of the deployment.
Post-Release ActivitiesCoordinate post-release monitoring, gather feedback, and initiate post-mortems or lessons learned sessions to identify areas for improvement.

Process Improvement and Governance

Establish and Maintain Release Processes Define and refine release management processes, methodologies (e.g., Agile, DevOps), and best practices to enhance efficiency, reduce time-to-market, and improve release quality.
Tooling and Automation Identify and implement appropriate release management tools and automation (e.g., CI/CD pipelines, automated deployment scripts) to streamline the release process.
Metrics and Reporting Track key performance indicators (KPIs) related to releases (e.g., release frequency, success rate, lead time, defect density) and provide regular reports to stakeholders to measure effectiveness and drive continuous improvement.
Documentation Ensure all release-related documentation, including release notes, deployment plans, and procedures, is accurate and up to date.