IT Release Management Consultant

SUMMARY

The Release Management Consultant role is accountable for managing the end-to-end release process to promote the highest level of quality in a technology implementation/release. This role is responsible for coordination of overall release effort which includes managing all cross-functional team dependencies and accounting for business priorities to define, construct, certify and schedule an application/change release into the production environment. This role validates release schedules and approves emergency releases.  

Responsibilities:

• Manage all cross-functional team dependencies and consider business priorities when scoping, planning and certifying an application/change release into the production environment.
• Analyze and communicate likely impacts of the new release to technology and business areas.
• Work with production application managers/delivery team leads to ensure scheduled changes take place with little or no impact to the business (and when applicable with proper notification to the business).
• Ensure that policy, regulatory and control requirements are satisfied though execution of standard transition checklists and procedures.
• Produce and manage a forward looking timeline for release windows and cycles across a portfolio of applications.
• Maintain release repository and manages key information such as build and release procedures, dependencies and notification lists
• Conduct Release readiness, milestone, and business go/no-go reviews.

Roles:

• Owns the release management lifecycle which includes scheduling, coordinating and managing releases throughout the enterprise for multiple applications and across various portfolios.
• Track and recommend improvements to service delivery and release management processes in accordance with business planning, work authorization and release management processes.
• Support the process for priority setting, planning and scheduling of releases.
• Manage risks and resolves issues that affect release scope, schedule and quality./shared with PM/RDQA/RiSC
• Monitor the release schedule and notify impacted stakeholders of schedule changes and exceptions.
• Participate in the Change Advisory Board.
• Maintain release schedule for core services and ensure alignment across key partners and vendors.
• Continually work towards making improvements in the release process.

REQUIREMENTS

Bachelor's Degree with 7 years experience; Master's Degree with 6 years experience; PhD with 2 years experience
• Knowledge of Pharmaceutical industry.
• Consulting Skills are strongly recommended
• Demonstrated ability to coordinate cross-functional work teams toward task completion.
• Demonstrated effective leadership and analytical skills.
• Ability to prioritize and multi-task.

Preferred:

• Advanced knowledge of Software Development Lifecycle (SDLC) methodologies.
• ITIL Foundation Certification.Preferred: ITIL Intermediate Certification in Release, Control and Validation.
• Advanced written and verbal communication skills.
• Strong problem resolution skills.