Lean Agile Portfolio Lead

Job Introduction

Selfridges has always been much more than a shop. We’re a social space where everyone is welcome and feels a sense of belonging, a creative playground where culture and commerce collide, and an experimental hub where you can discover the most innovative and sustainable ideas in retail. We’re here to help make the world brighter. And you can be an important part of this. We’ll talk more about the role below, but before we get to that, let’s share with you the good stuff…  

Rewards and benefits 

Life at Selfridges is dynamic, exciting, and always evolving. As well as working with some of the most cutting-edge, iconic and boundary-pushing brands, designers and creatives, we also offer our team members opportunities to help make a positive difference through our network of communities, both within and outside Selfridges. Here are just a few of our rewards and benefits that help make our team experience that bit more extraordinary. 

• Flexible working options to benefit you, your family and your wellbeing that can include part-time, flexi-time, job sharing or hybrid working

• Generous annual leave that increases with length of service 

• Up to five paid volunteering days – from beach cleans to co-ordinating food and clothing donations 

• Family leave that suits your set up including Maternity, Paternity, Adoption, Surrogacy and Shared Parental leave policies 

• Defined pension contribution scheme  

• Generous bonus and/or commission scheme  

• Enviable team member discount including sale previews and double discount days 

• Exclusive local discounts on a range of restaurants, bars, beauticians and entertainment 

• Subsidised gym memberships  

• Annual travel pass and cycle-to-work schemes  

• A sustainable car salary sacrifice scheme 

• Several internal communities to get involved in from our Diversity Board and Green Warriors who are leading the charge on D,E&I and sustainability, to the Wellbeings who are always thinking of new ways to champion healthy minds, bodies and routines for our team members 

• Workplace Options, our confidential team member assistance programme for when life gets tricky or you need a little guidance 

• Access to a wide range of training programmes to help your career development 

Read on to find out how you can play your part in Reinventing Retail… 

Role Responsibility

Within Selfridges we are on a journey to becoming a successful, modern digital organisation, moving towards being product led, and having with a product-led mindset. The strategic portfolio team are accountable for providing the Technology & Product teams with insight & foresight to improve metrics and deliver greater value to our customers.

The Strategic Portfolio team is a relatively new team with a relatively new partnership with our Technology & Product functions, therefore, this role is ideal for someone who is looking for the opportunity to help the team grow and learn as we define and evolve the future of how we deliver Technology enabled change here at Selfridges.  

As a Lean Portfolio Lead within the Strategic Portfolio Team you will be accountable for providing insight and foresight to Selfridge’s Technology and Product functions. You will support initiatives utilising multiple methodologies; scrum, kanban, continuous delivery & waterfall to achieve key customer outcomes.

As part of the Portfolio leadership team, you will facilitate Portfolio delivery through collaboration and provision of a holistic view of initiatives across our domains; Sell, Customer, Data, Source & Supply, Team Member Experience and Platforms Engineering.

WHAT YOU’LL DO…

Facilitate collaboration across domains, such as big room planning, dependency conflict management, calibration of cross-domain prioritisation, or trend and variance analyses to recommend improvements for cross-domain delivery

Accountable for Agile Portfolio Management Office processes and tooling to enable:

- Continual review of the Portfolio and identification of value to empower the organisation to target the right activity to deliver the best outcomes.

- Alignment of the portfolio to our business strategy and desired customer outcomes

- Transparency of the portfolio to ensure shared understanding of the portfolio across the business to enable an open environment where all concerned parties can understand status and progress of an initiative

- Providing insight to support management & optimisation of portfolio flow ensuring resources are always directed towards the most critical and valuable initiatives at any given point

- Analysis of key metrics to support continuous improvement

Perform Agile Portfolio Management Office accountabilities:  input to regular stakeholder updates, risks, issues and dependencies across the portfolio, liaison with Finance for benefit and cost management and maintenance of a holistic roadmap with outcomes aligned to strategy

Provide best practice Agile Portfolio Management expertise within the Strategic Portfolio Team

The Ideal Candidate

Previous delivery experience utilising a number of different delivery methodologies and best practice (e.g. Waterfall, Agile, Scrum, Kanban, Continuous Delivery)

Previous experience delivering and working with highly skilled engineering squads

Knowledge of principles of working on large scale IT initiatives

Knowledge of retail processes and digital product development

Strong analytical skills to analyse data from multiple sources to compile updates, and to make process recommendations and improvements

Ability to work with colleagues, bring groups together to discuss and solve problems, and collectively work out agreed ways to proceed

Effective interpersonal skills including mentoring, coaching, collaborating, and team building.

A strong metrics driven approach, with emphasis on outcomes and strategic alignment

Relevant qualifications or equivalent in experience: e.g. APM, Lean, Six Sigma

SKILLS & COMPETENCIES

- Leadership. Holds self and others accountable to meet commitments. Role models excellent behaviours and guids through both success and failure with a high focus on outcomes.

- Judgement. Ability to make informed decisions based upon analysis, experience, and judgment.

- Stakeholder Management & Communication. Comfortable challenging the status quo respectfully, providing advice to improve delivery. Ability to manage and engage multiple stakeholders providing the right updates and insight at the right points.

- Collaboration. Builds partnerships and works collaboratively with others to meet shared objectives. Builds strong relationships and trust quickly at all levels of the organisation.

- Problem Solving. Able to foresee and resolve potential bottlenecks, delays and barriers to delivery. Seeks solutions to problems.

- Business Insight. Applies knowledge of the business and the marketplace to advance the organisation's goals. Demonstrates clear understanding of how own activities relate to critical business drivers and customer outcomes.

About the Company

Everyone is welcome 

Selfridges is a place where we want everyone to feel a sense of belonging. We embrace every self and are committed to cultivating a diverse and inclusive working culture. We are leading with purpose to not only increase the visibility and recognition of under-represented talent within our organisation, but the wider industry too. Here at Selfridges, everyone is welcome – irrespective of race, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, age or disability, we stand by equal opportunities for all.   

Our awards cabinet  

We’re not ones to brag, but since you asked...Selfridges has won the award for The World’s Best Department Store an unprecedented four times at the IGDS awards, with an additional award for the Best Sustainability Campaign. We were also recognised as a ‘Best 25 Big Company to Work For 2020’ as awarded by The Sunday Times. 

Selfridges