Implementation Manager

Job description

Calling all innovators – find your future at Fiserv. We’re Fiserv, a global leader in Fintech and payments, and we move money and information in a way that moves the world. We connect financial institutions, corporations, merchants, and consumers to one another millions of times a day – quickly, reliably, and securely. Any time you swipe your credit card, pay through a mobile app, or withdraw money from the bank, we’re involved. If you want to make an impact on a global scale, come make a difference at Fiserv. Job Title Implementation Manager About your role: Reporting to the Programme Director and/or Programme Manager, the Implementation Manager is responsible for planning, coordinating and delivering client implementations, conversions and migration initiatives to meet specified business needs, while managing resources from multiple areas (and potentially third parties) to achieve agreed time, quality and client readiness objectives. The Implementation Manager has accountability and responsibility for the successful delivery of implementation activities across the full lifecycle, from initial planning and requirements alignment through testing, go-live and transition to BAU. The role acts as the key coordination point between the client, internal Fiserv teams and external partners to ensure that solutions are implemented effectively and in line with business, operational and technical requirements. What you’ll do: Defining the implementation approach, scope and delivery plan in alignment with client and programme objectives. Setting client expectations with respect to implementation deliverables, milestones, dependencies, timelines and readiness activities. Establishing an appropriate implementation governance structure, in line with the Fiserv programme/project methodology and governance framework. Supporting the client and sponsor through implementation planning, key decisions, sign-offs and readiness checkpoints. Documenting the overall implementation approach, including conversion strategy, cutover planning, testing phases and transition requirements. Developing and maintaining detailed implementation workstream plans across the full programme lifecycle, ensuring deliverables, walkthroughs, sign-offs and timeline dependencies are clearly defined and tracked. Developing estimates for resources, effort and durations and, based on these, creating a high-level implementation schedule and requesting appropriate resources. Facilitating the development of all elements of the implementation plan, including scope, schedule, RAID management, testing, training, communications, cutover and transition to BAU. Establishing and managing event readiness criteria and readiness tracking across Fiserv, client and third-party workstreams, including RAG status reporting and escalation of at-risk items. Defining and coordinating event governance, communications and the Schedule of Events (SoE), including checkpoint strategy, decision point criteria, meeting cadence, attendees, decision makers, cutover activities, dependencies, task sequencing and client alignment. Ensuring that all implementation impacts on business processes, operational readiness and business continuity are assessed and continually monitored throughout the implementation lifecycle. Coordinating cross-functional Fiserv teams, client stakeholders and third parties to ensure alignment on activities, deliverables and dependencies. Acting as a primary point of contact for the client during implementation delivery and maintaining strong working relationships across all stakeholders. Execution & Controls Managing, maintaining and tracking the overall implementation plan, controls, work assignments, risks, issues, assumptions and dependencies in accordance with established Fiserv governance. Reporting implementation status, including schedule, risks, issues, milestones, decisions and scope changes, to all stakeholders on a regular basis. Managing readiness trackers and event entry criteria to assess implementation readiness and support go/no-go decision making. Organising and facilitating the appropriate governance forums to review progress, manage escalations and determine corrective or preventive actions. Managing implementation risks and issues, ensuring that team members are actively involved in identification, ownership and resolution activities where appropriate. Monitoring implementation progress across all workstreams and ensuring that deliverables are completed on time and to the required quality standards. Building and maintaining a cohesive cross-functional implementation team environment and fostering productive working relationships across Fiserv, client and third-party teams. Ensuring the development, review and approval of all key implementation deliverables. Refining resource, effort and duration estimates as the implementation progresses, ensuring that resource requests are raised early enough to secure the required support. Managing proposed changes in scope, schedule or implementation approach with key stakeholders, clearly communicating impacts and recommended actions. Scheduling, managing and participating in implementation reviews, testing checkpoints, readiness assessments and go-live planning sessions. Ensuring the Schedule of Events (SoE) is detailed, baselined and aligned with the client plan prior to implementation events and updated with lessons learned for subsequent events. Coordinating command and control activities during implementation events, including real-time tracking of task execution, dependencies, slippages and decision points. Supporting the definition and execution of the event incident management process, ensuring alignment with client processes, Fiserv internal incident management standards, incident priorities and event-related SLAs. Developing and maintaining event rota, support and contact plans to ensure appropriate coverage, escalation paths and resource availability during implementation and go-live windows. Organising, leading and motivating a matrix team of Fiserv SMEs and, where applicable, third-party resources. Maintaining an ongoing dialogue with PMO and programme leadership to ensure that defined processes are followed and that issues are addressed in a timely manner. Ensuring a clean, structured and fully supported transition to BAU, including appropriate handovers to service and support teams. Providing out-of-hours cover during critical implementation and go-live windows, including implementation weekends where required. Performing implementation administration, including status reporting, documentation management, action tracking and governance support. Closeout & Transition Obtaining approval from the sponsor and client that implementation acceptance criteria have been met. Confirming that implementation objectives and agreed deliverables have been achieved. Confirming that all outstanding implementation risks and issues have been accepted, transitioned or resolved appropriately. Supporting financial tracking and implementation completion activities, where applicable. Facilitating the implementation review and obtaining approval to close out the implementation phase, documented within an end-of-implementation report. Reviewing implementation outcomes, lessons learned and event performance to identify improvements and incorporate actions into future implementation events where applicable. Ensuring that post-event actions, outstanding items and agreed lessons learned are tracked through to closure or transitioned appropriately into warranty and BAU support processes. Performing implementation closeout activities and archiving implementation documentation, including the completion and communication of formal Lessons Learned outputs where applicable. Experience you’ll need to have: Significant proven experience (minimum 5 years) in implementation management, client onboarding, conversion or delivery roles within the Financial Services ind