Sr. Agile Project Manager (Release Train Engineer) Responsibilities
Integrated Agile Engineering and Waterfall PMO processes
Definition
The Sr. Agile Project Manager, also known as Release Train Engineer (RTE), is the servant leader and coach for Connected Vehicle Development and Delivery Agile Teams. Major responsibilities include facilitating agile program events and processes, assisting teams in delivering value, and communicating status effectively — including the state of the schedule, quarter, and releases.
Purpose
This role supports teams by facilitating Quarterly Planning, Scrum of Scrums, System Demos, Inspect & Adapt workshops, escalating impediments, managing risk, and promoting continuous improvement at the development and delivery level. The role also assists teams by facilitating Primary BA/BSA Sync’s (Business Analyst/Business Systems Analyst synchronization meetings), since these individuals are accountable for scope and scope decisions through the PMO gate processes (Project Management Office decision checkpoints). By facilitating these processes, this role ensures alignment across teams, reduces project risks, and drives successful delivery of business objectives.
Additionally, the RTE establishes a systematic process for aligning, monitoring, and reporting release status via a standardized team board (JIRA). These boards are utilized during Weekly Status Review (WSR) meetings to provide stakeholders and Agile teams with consistent updates on project and release progress, thereby promoting transparency and timely communication.
The RTE coordinates and facilitates activities necessary to prepare internal and external stakeholders for releases/solutions and ensures critical governance elements of quality—particularly internal/external security, regulatory, and compliance aspects—are addressed prior to release.
Responsible Party and Responsibilities
- Facilitates the creation of the application/system and services release calendars
- Facilitates the creation of the agile project/function planning calendar
- Facilitate Quarterly Planning readiness by fostering the preparation of Vision and Backlogs
- Facilitates Quarterly Planning events
- Produces and shares a quarterly report, including upcoming plans, past recaps, and metrics
- Collates team objectives into Program Release Plan Objectives and shares them for transparency
- Tracks and monitors feature completion
- Facilitates Scrum of Scrums
- Facilitates Primary BA/BSA Sync’s (Business Analyst/Business Systems Analyst synchronization meetings)
- Assists in PMO gate 3 estimation by working with finance to translate team sprint data to costs
- Helps manage and resolve risk and dependencies, escalating impediments as needed
- Provides recommendations on resourcing to address critical bottlenecks
- Encourages collaboration between teams, SMEs and Architects
- Responsible for facilitating and communicating the creation and maintenance of application, system, and services release calendars.
- Reviews and confirms that team metrics are consistently determined and accurately reported across all teams.
- Works with and communicates with stakeholders to ensure strategy and execution alignment
- Drives relentless improvement via Inspect and Adapt workshops; helps improve the Agile Program agility level
Responsibilities for Bridging Waterfall PMO and Agile Engineering
- Attends PMO gate meetings to identify and review upcoming project backlog, ensuring visibility into future initiatives
- Receive prioritization of the project backlog directly from Leadership decisions tracked by the PMO, supporting informed decision-making for project sequencing
- Collaborate with technical managers for Agile team assignments to projects after or at Gate 2 approval, facilitating timely resource allocation and team formation
- Gate 2 approvals for team assignment and stories/design to begin
- Assists in PMO gate 3 estimation by working with finance to translate team sprint data to costs
- Gate 3 is approval that scope, design, and estimations are completed; Gate 3 approvals signal for teams to pickup development with the next quarterly planning session
- Helps manage and resolve risk and dependencies, escalating impediments as needed
- Provides recommendations on resourcing to address critical bottlenecks
- Encourages collaboration between teams, SMEs and Architects
- Works with and communicates with stakeholders to ensure strategy and execution alignment
- Drives relentless improvement via Inspect and Adapt workshops; helps improve the Agile Program agility level
- Provides input into project retrospectives to help identify lessons learned and drive continuous improvement across teams
Responsibilities for Bridging Waterfall PMO and Agile Engineering
- Attends PMO gate meetings to identify and review upcoming project backlog, ensuring visibility into future initiatives
- Receive prioritization of the project backlog directly from Leadership decisions tracked by the PMO, supporting informed decision-making for project sequencing
- Collaborate with technical managers for Agile team assignments to projects after or at Gate 2 approval, facilitating timely resource allocation and team formation
- Quarterly updates are delivered through a Quarterly Update Deck,
- detailing planned versus actual work and releases fostering transparency and enabling effective progress tracking across both Waterfall and Agile methodologies
- reporting Agile team metrics for previous quarter and over time, comparing SCRUM and KANBAN teams against established goals highlighting trends and areas for improvement
Accountable To
- Associate Director – CV Development and Delivery
- CV Leadership
- CV Technical Leadership
- Agile teams
- Primary BA/BSA Sync’s (Business Analyst/Business Systems Analyst)
Elaboration and Variants
A Servant Leader with a background as an Agile Scrum or Scrum of Scrums manager, or Sr. Project Manager with strong collaboration and Agile methodologies experience. The philosophy implies a comprehensive view of quality—people, work, and community spirit. The focus is on providing teams with the support needed to be self-organized and self-managed.
Possesses a strong background and demonstrates flexibility to thrive in a hybrid environment, adeptly navigating both Agile and Waterfall methodologies. This adaptability ensures effective collaboration across diverse project management structures and supports successful delivery in complex, multi-methodology settings.
- Listens and supports teams in problem-identification and decision-making
- Creating an environment of mutual influence
- Understands and empathize with others
- Encourages and supports skill development for high-performing teams
- Coaches people with powerful questions rather than using authority
- Thinks beyond day-to-day activities
- Supports teams’ commitments
- Is open and appreciates openness in others
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