Program Lead

Job Title: Program Lead Location: Dunstable, UK (Hybrid for 3days/week) Job Type: Contract or FTC for 5months Key responsibilities:

• Run the incumbent knowledge-transition gap sessions and keep the knowledge register moving from day one.
• Own the critical path across both squads, the programme gates (feasibility, release candidate, pilot exit, go-live) and the Show & Tell cadence every two weeks.
• Chair the week-3 feasibility gate and either confirm January or reforecast it in the open, before effort is sunk.
• Manage the capacity profile (27 at start, 33 at peak, tapering through pilot and cutover) and the release of people back to their practices on schedule.
• Own risk, dependency and decision management with Whitbread, including the three migration decisions (cut-off, retention, archive) and the task-management data-design decision.
• Be accountable for commercial control: delivery against the committed price and the delivery-tracking metrics that hold it. Essential skills and experience:
• Fifteen years or more in software delivery, with programme-manager accountability for recovery, takeover or turnaround programmes under a fixed date.
• Track record running mixed onsite/offshore teams of 25 or more across parallel workstreams.
• Strong command of Agile at scale (PI planning, multi-squad cadence) and of evidence-based governance and gating.
• Credible in front of a client executive audience; able to give bad news early and hold a plan together under pressure. Desirable:
• Hospitality, retail operations, or field-workforce domain exposure.
• Experience of Nintex or low-code platform replat forming programmes.