Service Owner Head of Data Design and Build

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the UKs largest producer of official statistics, covering a range of key economic, social and demographic topics. These include measuring changes in the value of the UK economy, estimating the size, geographic distribution, and characteristics of the population, and providing indicators of price inflation, employment, earnings, crime, and migration.

Data Products, Services and Governance (DPSG), which sits centrally within ONS, provides a cross-ONS capability for data, including data access and preparation, and the provision of data and linked data products. DPSG develops and manages the systems and processes that underpin the distribution of data across ONS and beyond. DPSG provides data to ONS, academia, wider government, and other external users in a safe and controlled way, supporting and encouraging users to maximise data utility, enabling innovation and statistical and research use.

The Data Architecture, Location and Integration Division within DPSG is responsible for the production of core linked and geospatial data products for use across ONS, the core data architecture standards and practices the organisation adheres to, and the design and build of new data infrastructures to deliver them.

This role, as Head of the Data Design and Build team, is a critical one within the division, leading the provision of a well-architected infrastructure to support our delivery of data and data products to ONS and external customers.

This role is being advertised under the Service Owner role profile under the Government Digital and Data Profession. The successful candidate will lead the Data Design and Build team (DDB), a multidisciplinary group of architects, data engineers, user researchers, business analysts and software developers, which is responsible for building the next generation of data services on the ONS Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environment. Currently the team is primarily focused on building a metadata infrastructure which will enable us to manage data across the ONS estate, supporting our data governance programme as well as providing a data discoverability layer, and the ability to use metadata more effectively for both quality improvements and automated data pipelines.

You will be accountable for the delivery of evolving functionality for the service based on user feedback and the requirements of the Data Governance Office, Knowledge and Information Management (KIM) team, Digital Publishing team and other core business stakeholders. For this reason, stakeholder management and the ability to critically evaluate requirements and suggest solutions is particularly key.

The successful candidate will need to be an experienced agile practitioner who can help the team prioritise, set targets and deliver, while providing the support, decision making and removal of blockers that will enable that delivery.

Responsibilities

• Lead on delivery, recognising and collaborating where multiple products or service teams need to deliver and ensuring interdependencies and cross-cutting team issues are dealt with.
• Own the service, taking responsibility for business-as-usual development, problem resolution, and continuous improvement; seeking to find the best balance of resource allocation against competing priorities.
• Support development teams by setting priorities and ensuring the product vision is clearly articulated thereby helping to define the roadmap for the products and service and translate that into an achievable backlog.
• Support the programme, delivery teams, and wider multi-disciplined teams by communicating what is achievable in each timeframe.
• Build relationships with product managers, sponsors, and other stakeholders so that they remain on-board throughout, and ensure others are not allowed to divert resources or influence priorities. 
• Encourage a culture of innovation focused on adding value.
• Effectively manage team dynamics when working across departmental and other boundaries
• Actively develop agile capability of teams, learning, sharing, and re-applying skills and knowledge and bringing in good practice
• Effectively engage with, set direction for, and manage suppliers to get optimum value.
• Communicate service performance against key indicators to internal and external stakeholders.

Essential Criteria:

• Applying user-centred insights (Expert) - You can: Advocate for a range of effective research approaches across the organisation. Coach others in making decisions that meet user needs across a range of channels. Advocate for continuous use of user insights in teams. Use user insights to make strategic decisions to provide the best user experience.
• Leading performance and benefits (Expert) - You can: Ensure appropriate measures are in place to deliver valuable outcomes to users and agreed business benefits. Ensure metrics are used to monitor, manage and prioritise delivery and inform decision making. Demonstrate the value of the service and build understanding with stakeholders by ensuring effective data and insights are shared.
• Life cycle management (Practitioner) - You can: Work and consult with the right people at the right time to move through the life cycle and deliver value. Use evidence to decide when a team should continue, change direction or stop. Identify tools and techniques required at different phases of the life cycle. Guide colleagues and stakeholders through different phases of the life cycle.
• Stakeholder relationship management (Expert) - You can: Direct the stakeholder relationship strategy for your teams. Ensure stakeholder's objectives are set and support teams to meet them. Influence and negotiate with senior stakeholders to resolve issues and enable progress.
• Strategic ownership (Expert) - You can: Support and coach others in creating and implementing a successful long-term strategy and tactical approach that others agree with. Influence and persuade stakeholders to support delivery of the strategy. Support with strategic decision making. Ensure strategic alignment across the organisation.