Senior Director, Delivery and Execution

Role Summary

Reporting to the Vice President, Research and Development, the Senior Director, Delivery and Execution is the sole delivery manager for the Research and Development organization. He manages the five R&D directors and is accountable to management and customers for the portfolio's delivery commitments: schedules, quality, capacity and selection of priorities.

The position was created to establish clear accountability for execution, where the coordination of several departments and the monitoring of major projects exceeded the capacity of a single level. The holder does not coordinate delivery: he is responsible for it.

The role has two sequenced mandates. Stabilize delivery commitments, establish cadence, metrics and governance that make execution visible before it slips. Produce and initiate a delivery transformation plan, in particular by delegating monitoring activities, production of progress reports and analysis preparation to AI agents, in order to concentrate the time of its directors on decision-making and supervision.

The incumbent also supervises major projects carried out with external partners and integrators, and manages the execution relationship with these suppliers.

An autonomous and highly motivated leader, he values collective success, customer satisfaction and rigor of execution. He operates in a bilingual environment, French and English, in teleworking mode, within a software solutions organization intended for the health network in Quebec.

This position offers the opportunity to build the delivery function of an R&D organization in full transformation, with an explicit mandate to redefine the ways of doing things.

Governance of execution

Define and operate delivery indicators: compliance with commitments, cadence, capacity, quality and technical debt.

Instrument progress monitoring in an automated manner rather than through manual collection.

Produce for management a reliable and regular reading of the progress of the portfolio.

Cross-functional collaboration

Work closely with Growth and Innovation, Technical Services, Safety and Quality, as well as the Customer Service and Sales teams.

Translate the product roadmap into realistic delivery commitments, and escalate capacity constraints before the commitment rather than after.

Human capital management

Optimize the allocation of resources between departments according to strategic priorities.

Ensure proactive workforce management: needs planning, skills development and employee mobilization.

Role success indicators

The success of the incumbent is measured on four families of indicators:

Keeping commitments

Rate of compliance with dates committed to customers and management.

Average difference between the committed date and the delivered date, and time to detect a delay before the deadline.

Quality and stability

Quality of deliveries and reduction of production incidents.

Evolution of technical debt carried by the teams.

Responsibilities

Accountability for delivery

• Account for delivery commitments across the entire R&D portfolio — timelines, quality, scope and budget — to management and to customers.
• Arbitrate priorities and capacity allocation between the five directorates when commitments conflict.
• Detect deviations before they are reported, and intervene at the right level.

Management of a team of directors

• Lead, supervise and develop the five R&D directors: objectives, evaluation, development plans and performance management.
• Establish an explicit delegation framework: what is decided by directors and what is escalated.
• Develop management succession within the organization.

Delivery Transformation

• Design and lead the transformation of delivery methods, including the application of AI to engineering, quality assurance and project management work.
• Determine, for each execution activity, what can be delegated to agents and what must remain under human accountability, then redefine the roles accordingly.
• Establish the safeguards for responsible use of AI – quality, traceability, protection of health information – measure the capacity gains obtained and report them to management.

Major projects and external partners

• Ensure the delivery of major projects carried out with external suppliers and integrators.
• Maintain the execution relationship with these partners: commitments, escalations and scope reviews.

Requirements

Organizational performance

• Mobilization, development and retention of the five directors and their teams.
• Delivery transformation plan produced and initiated within the first twelve months.

Profile sought

• At least ten years of experience in software development or software solution delivery, including five years in management.
• Demonstrated experience managing managers: having led directors or managers of managers — ideally an indirect organization of fifty or more people — not individual contributors.
• Assumed accountability for the delivery of a multi-team portfolio: commitments kept, deadlines adjusted, quantified results.
• Experience in turning around a late delivery organization.
• Ability to instrument execution: indicators, cadence, capacity management and equipped governance.
• Demonstrated experience applying AI to transform the way a technical team works — beyond experimentation.
• Management of major projects and external suppliers.
• Mastery of Agile practices at scale (SAFe, LeSS or equivalent) and sufficient technical proximity to arbitrate with credibility.
• Judgment regarding responsible use of AI and protection of health information.
• Executive communication, and the ability to say no before engagement rather than apologizing afterwards.
• Experience in the health sector (asset).
• Bilingualism (French and English) mandatory.

Benefits

• An explicit transformation mandate, with the autonomy and hierarchical authority to exercise it.
• Real scope from the start: five departments and the entire delivery portfolio.
• Employee Stock Purchase Plan and RRSP Matching Programs, as a division of Harris Computer and Constellation Software Group.
• Comprehensive medical, dental and vision coverage.
• Teleworking, in a bilingual organization established in Quebec.
• Opportunities for advancement across Harris and its divisions.

Capacity and cadence

• Team delivery cadence and planning predictability.
• Capacity gains achieved by automation and AI applied to execution work, measured and reported to management.