Delivery Lead

at  AKQA Leap

Location: London
Permanent/Full Time
Department: Delivery
Reports to: Senior Delivery Lead
Salary: £50,000 - £60,000
We are looking for a Delivery Lead to join our digital product studio, supporting and developing our progressive and talented team of engineers, designers and product managers.

ABOUT US

AKQA Leap are digital product specialists within the AKQA Group network (WPP), with studios in London and Bristol.
We believe that quality is the fastest path to success. So whether we’re launching, fixing or scaling a product, we get it right the first time. Some call it the magic touch. We call it quality at speed.
For over a decade, we’ve been designing, developing, and launching quality digital products for businesses like Google, Spotify and Vodafone.
People-focused. Curious. Always growing. These are just some of the values AKQA Leap upholds to cultivate an open, committed, and inclusive studio where you can be you. From the moment we meet, we’ll do our best to get to know you and understand what drives you. Our goal? To empower you to thrive and develop.
We aspire to push boundaries and craft purposeful products that people love. What truly matters is what you create, not where you create it—whether you feel in the flow working from home, or seek some company at our London or Bristol studios, we give you the freedom to work in a location and in the way that inspires you most.
To find out more about us visit https://www.akqa.com/leap/

ACCOUNTABILITIES

• Building effective teams

Delivery Leads are learning how to be flexible, responding to the needs of their product teams and identifying the ways of working that deliver the best possible outcomes. Their growing knowledge and experience of Delivery allows them to implement a range of different Delivery Frameworks.

• Creating happy teams

Delivery Leads are strong communicators and relationship builders. They monitor client and team health, responding to issues and conflicts and implementing changes to help create happy teams.

• Ensuring commercial success

Delivery Leads are responsible for managing contracts and the overall commercial performance. Working closely with the support of their line manager, they draft contracts and escalate commercial issues and risks when appropriate.

• Growth and learning

Delivery Leads focus their learning and growth and cementing the core skills across the Delivery competencies.

• Community involvement, internal projects and initiatives

Delivery Leads inform and contribute to the community strategy. They support the rollout of initiatives and may also take part in other internal projects and initiatives to help further their learning and development.

• Line management, mentorship and hiring

Line management and mentoring is not expected at the Delivery Lead level. As the team grows, Delivery Leads take part in hiring interviews and offer feedback and perspective to the hiring team. Delivery Leads also support the onboarding of new team members to the wider Delivery Community and project teams.

• Supporting New Business and Marketing

From time to time, Delivery Leads provide support to the New Business and Marketing teams. This can involve reviewing New Business proposals and contracts.

INCLUSIVITY

We want to make our hiring as inclusive as possible; this job description has been reviewed by a range of employees and has passed a neutral language check. We have also reviewed our hiring process to make sure it offers flexibility to candidates who need it.
We welcome you to inform us confidentially at peopleteam@akqaleap.com if you require any accommodations to be able to fully participate in our recruitment process.
We’re trying to do better and would love your feedback. If you think there’s anything we could improve or places you think we should advertise, then please let us know.
Location: Our office is based in London and we anticipate this role to be hybrid with a mixture of remote and office based work

ABOUT THE ROLE

Delivery Leads at AQKA Leap are responsible for creating and leading medium to large product teams. This is a pivotal role to our success - Delivery Leads are the champions of the client and the team.

Delivery Leads seek to maximise their teams’ outcomes by:

• Building effective teams - Defining and optimising how the team works
• Creating happy teams - Nurturing team and client health
• Ensuring commercial success - Managing the financial engagement

Our Delivery Leads are accountable for delivery methodology and for leading a team to ensure timely, accurate and effective delivery.
Experienced in agile methodologies and with a solid project management grounding, the Delivery Lead works closely with in-house teams using Scrum, Kanban or waterfall approaches.

ROLE RESPONSIBILITIES

• Being aware of the outcomes that the product teams are working towards
• Defining the ways of working and optimising to deliver the best possible outcomes
• Communicating the chosen approach effectively so product teams (including clients) are aware and on board with the approach.
• Balancing speed and quality - ensuring it is right for the needs of the product
• Tracking and reporting velocity
• Initiating and sunsetting projects
• Identifying and mitigating risks, preventing issues from leading to preventable escalations
• Ensure Backlog management, championing data driven prioritisation
• Support programme delivery within our larger account teams
• Represent the authoritative source of all delivery status information on projects at all times
• Enable continuous improvement and high impact outcomes through the application of Agile methodologies
• Creating and updating product documentation to make onboarding and off-boarding easier, and to ensure that the knowledge transfer remains efficient within the team
• Understanding of experience in agile and lean design and development approaches
• Be aware of the importance of focus on the “right” things, not just the “most urgent” things
• Identify and solve problems, blockers and bottlenecks
• Financial reporting and forecasting
• Facilitating ceremonies, meetings and project kick-offs (involving team members to take active roles as appropriate)
• Act as the key liaison between internal and client teams
• Measure and report on team health and efficacy
• High levels of emotional intelligence, personal resilience and empathy
• Self-motivation and the ability to motivate others
• Patient, empathetic, direct conflict resolution
• Coach and mentor others on Agile ways of working,
• Facilitating delivery of new business proposals and pitches
• Identifying risks, blockers and dependencies
• Creating budget and SoWs
• Facilitating and participating in the qualification of new leads to ensure varied level of experience across all disciplines is represented in the process
• Supporting the creation of decks and other materials for proposals and pitches
• Participating in client pitches and presentations
• Networking at events
• Authoring content and material for AKQA Leap’s channels, in alignment with the marketing strategy