Job Description. Post Title : User Platform Manager. School/Department : Department of IT Services. Line Manager : Head of Design & Delivery

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1 Job Description Post Title : User Platform Manager School/Department : Department of IT Services Line Manager : Head of Design & Delivery Grade : 8A Post number : Job Purpose: To take responsibility for leading the design, development, reliability and quality assurance of user platform services to meet the strategic and operational needs of the University. This includes the development, implementation and management of projects to deliver new services and improvement of existing services to meet specific measurable business benefits. To take responsibility for the managing of working practices and processes to ensure a high quality user experience, changing approaches and working practices to influence organisational transformation. To build and establish effective working relationships with key stakeholders to gather information about user needs and the user experience and resolving potential conflicts between user requirements and usability objectives. To lead and manage the staff delivering user platform services, providing feedback on performance, facilitating skills development and effective networking and knowledge exchange across the teams. Main Duties and Responsibilities: Service delivery, operation and development To manage and prioritise user platform services to meet operational and strategic business needs, ensuring all services are cost effective and deliver value for money. To provide leadership with stakeholder engagement, to capture and analyse the implications of the user experience to develop a comprehensive understanding of short to long term user platform needs. To influence policy and procedural development for user platform services to ensure consistency of quality and reliability and employ best practices to continually improve the user experience. To monitor overall usage across user platform services to provide reports and service documentation to manage user expectations and influence business

2 decision making as well as create concepts that are both user-centred and competitively differentiating. To liaise and collaborate with key stakeholders to analyse organisational needs, resource capability and capacity and ensure proposals meet industry standards and short and long term business objectives. To demonstrate organisational commitment to high standards in all aspects of the interaction between platform users and deployed applications, processes, content and services between users by designing and where appropriate delivering training/learning initiatives. Leadership, team management and development To lead and manage the team delivering user platform services to meet the strategic and operational needs of the University. To allocate, prioritise and monitor work, identifying and agreeing individual and team objectives and providing feedback on performance and development needs. To encourage staff to work collaboratively with Service Delivery teams and share knowledge and expertise across IT Services teams. Providing leadership and guidance with complex user platform issues to ensure a high quality user experience. To monitor user platform performance and liaise with the IT Services teams to minimise disruption and facilitate project working. To cascade and communicate relevant information and develop learning activities for colleagues within the IT Services structure where user platform issues overlap. To manage the development budget to support existing user platform services staff skills and capabilities development and plan future needs and capacity for team members, delivering training where necessary. Relationships, stakeholders and networking To consult with other technical specialists and colleagues across the IT Services teams and external to the University to design and develop integration plans and activities to ensure the effective and efficient integration of user platform services. To liaise with the Head of Design and Delivery to provide status updates and reports on user platform services work streams and projects, providing performance metrics, risk analysis and service recommendations as appropriate. To liaise and engage with internal and external networks of specialists and peers to influence the adoption of industry best practice throughout user platform services. To build strong working relationships and collaborate across the IT Services teams exchanging knowledge and expertise to lead with improved service integration, innovation and transformation to meet the University's strategic objectives. To participate in external networks to identify new user platform services, processes and problem solving approaches, tools and techniques, and develop these into methodologies and protocols for use in IT Services Planning and organising resources To take responsibility for the definition, documentation, facilitation and successful completion of user platform services projects using recognised project

3 methodology. To ensure that project plans are maintained and projects completed within agreed cost, timescale and resource budgets. To assess and manage risks to the success of work streams and projects and where appropriate ensuring effective project control, change control and risk management and testing processes are put in place. To ensure the effective planning of a common platform service for websites, portals, mobile applications within the University to manage the use of these diverse technologies to increase the quality and enhance the user experience in accordance with IT Services and University business plans. To take mitigating actions to ensure a secure and consistent users platform service taking account of the complex and often random nature of the technologies involved. To lead, manage and implement development projects to ensure a secure and cost effective operation of user platform services. To develop strategies to influence the effective use and integration of applications, processes, content, services and technologies. Decision making and problem solving To develop and in-depth knowledge and understanding of user platform service needs at the University. To design and manage testing of new and updated processes and ensure results are documented. To provide specialist guidance and advice to user platform services staff and less experience colleagues and users where relevant. To act as the IT Services user platform specialist, providing specific knowledge and advice to help others inside and outside the IT Services teams to solve problems that are less commonly occurring and those that arise from attempting innovative approaches across a diverse range of technologies and services. To contribute to decision making within project teams to define scoping and specification of technical requirements. To determine the strategy to provide a reliable and consistent user platform for websites, portals and mobile applications across the University. PERSON SPECIFICATION Qualifications/Experience: Essential Degree or equivalent professional recognition and experience in a relevant discipline. Demonstrable experience of working with relevant service technologies to a specialist practitioner level. Experience of running online services such as SaaS, IaaS and PaaS. Professional project management qualification (e.g. PRINCE2 foundation or equivalent) or ability to demonstrate equivalent experience in leading and managing significant projects. ITIL (version 3 or later) Foundation level qualification [or with training have

4 achieved this qualification within their probation period]. Desirable Experience of working in a high volume public sector environment. ILM (Level 3) Qualification or equivalent leadership and management experience. Passionate about the user experience. Ability to work with developers and solution architects to communicate and evaluate designs through to implementation. Experience of the applications used by the team. Experience of relevant architectures and server technologies. Knowledge of Agile Project Management techniques. Skills & Knowledge: Essential In depth knowledge and understanding of user platform services. Demonstrate the ability to represent the requirements of the end user in all activities across all user platform services. Strong problem solving and analytical skills. Evidence of the ability to communicate effectively to pass on information to a wide range of specialists and non-specialists. Evidence of the ability to lead and manage people and resources successfully to meet organisational performance standards. Evidence of taking initiative and a willingness to explore developments in technology and the user experience to lead to innovation with user platform services. Evidence of a broad and specialist understanding of wider areas of IT and digital concepts, practices and products. Demonstrate the ability to apply specialist technical theory and conceptual information to practical service-based situations. Desirable Evidence of in depth knowledge of a wide range of commercial user platform technologies. Able to demonstrate a proactive and enthusiastic approach to service delivery for user platform services. Evidence of being able to prioritise, delegate and assign work to others. Ability to negotiate and compromise in order to find a solution. Knowledge of relevant IT standards. Essential Personal Qualities: A self starter, works well as part of a team, self motivated and able to work to

5 and meet deadlines. A keen interest in technology and how it can be applied Ability to prioritise a busy workload and meet tight deadlines Facilitative customer facing skills Knowledge of up to date hardware/software development trends Ability to take initiative in developing approaches to problems Demonstrates attention to detail Ability to lead and motivate others