Senior Project Manager/Leader in Toronto

Location: Up to 3 days onsite (subject to HM's discretion), Metro Hall, 55 John Street

Duration: 6 Months (130 Business Days)

Qualifications and Experience:

• Bachelor's degree in computer science, Information Technology, or related field.
• Minimum 10 years of experience in IT Service Management, Release Management, Change Management, Project Delivery, or related disciplines.
• Demonstrated experience establishing or maturing Release Management practices within large, complex public-sector or enterprise organizations.
• Proven experience working across multiple business units and technology teams with varying delivery methodologies, governance models, and operational processes.
• Experience developing enterprise-wide governance frameworks, operating models, standards, procedures, and service management processes.
• Strong understanding of technology delivery lifecycles, including Agile, Waterfall, Hybrid, DevOps, and operational change practices.
• Experience facilitating stakeholder workshops, process assessments, and consensus-building activities with diverse groups.
• Proven ability to influence stakeholders and drive process adoption in environments with limited standardization.
• Experience creating executive-level reports, dashboards, presentations, and governance materials.
• Excellent verbal and written communication, facilitation, and stakeholder engagement skills.
• Ability to work independently while collaborating effectively within cross-functional teams.

Technical Capabilities:

• Strong knowledge of ITIL principles and service management best practices, including Release Management, Change Management, Incident Management, Problem Management, Configuration Management, and Service Request Management.
• Experience designing and implementing release governance, release planning, deployment coordination, dependency management, and risk management processes.
• Knowledge of software development and deployment lifecycles, including CI/CD, DevOps, Agile delivery, and operational support models.
• Experience working with enterprise service management and project delivery tools such as ServiceNow, Jira, Azure DevOps, or equivalent platforms.
• Ability to analyze existing processes, identify gaps, and develop practical recommendations for process standardization and continuous improvement.
• Experience developing metrics and reporting frameworks to measure release performance, process compliance, operational effectiveness, and service quality.

Deliverables:

• Develop and implement a standardized enterprise Release Management framework, including governance, processes, procedures, roles, and responsibilities.
• Produce Release Management templates, intake forms, release plans, deployment checklists, governance artifacts, and supporting documentation.
• Establish an enterprise release calendar, release governance model, risk management approach, and release reporting framework.
• Conduct assessments of current release practices and provide recommendations and implementation plans for process improvements.
• Develop training materials, knowledge transfer documentation, and guidance to support organizational adoption of Release Management practices.
• Deliver regular status reports, performance metrics, and recommendations to leadership to support continuous improvement and long-term operational sustainability.

The Release Manager will:

• Develop, implement, and operationalize a standardized Release Management framework, processes, procedures, templates, and governance controls.
• Assess current-state release and deployment practices across multiple business and technology teams and recommend improvements to achieve consistency and compliance.
• Collaborate with project, product, operations, infrastructure, and vendor teams to establish release planning, coordination, scheduling, risk management, and deployment practices.
• Facilitate release governance activities, including release assessments, release calendars, dependency management, risk reviews, approval processes, and deployment readiness reviews.
• Define and implement release metrics, dashboards, reporting, and performance measures to support operational transparency and continuous improvement.
• Develop and maintain release management artifacts, including intake processes, release plans, deployment checklists, governance documentation, and operating procedures.
• Provide guidance, coaching, and training to project and operational teams on Release Management processes, roles, responsibilities, and best practices.
• Work closely with Change Management, Project Management, Service Management, and technical teams to align release activities with organizational objectives and service delivery requirements.