Dan Woodhead
Delivery Manager at GSS- Claim this Profile
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Topline Score
Bio
Ronan Diver
I worked closely with Dan for 10 months. He has been instrumental in the both the team's success and my own personal success within Codat this year to delivery high-quality data science and machine learning data products to market at scale. Dan is always extremely on-the-ball and his razor focus on client deliverables has been invaluable for us as a team when prioritising work. One of the common difficulties in building software with data science is pinning down a delivery timeline, which is hard due to the uncertainty of experimental analysis. Dan was pragmatic and innovative in his approach, making suggestions and coming up with new approaches to communicating the data science team's progress with the wider business. His efforts meant that all the key stakeholders were fully kept in the loop which helped engineering cross-team collaboration and also helped communication with other units of the business, such as client-facing teams. Ultimately Dan has both enabled and supercharged our team's ability to deliver machine-learning software exactly where the client and business need is highest.
Darren Bellamy
I had the great pleasure of working directly with Dan on a Small Change Programme. Dan was instrumental in helping to design the programme and was the primary link between the programme and IT. I found Dan very easy to work with and together we achieved a high rate of delivery, employing agile methods acrosss multiple business and technology functions. Dan and I drove the planning and scheduling and worked very closely to ensure the updates and statuses were accurate and communicated regularly. The feedback for the programme was excellent and drove the creation of delivery roadmaps within the business and technology functions Including a regulatory delivery roadmap. I found Dan to be the perfect mix of professional and friendly and was very impressed by his Agile skills. He would make an excellent product manager in the future!
Ronan Diver
I worked closely with Dan for 10 months. He has been instrumental in the both the team's success and my own personal success within Codat this year to delivery high-quality data science and machine learning data products to market at scale. Dan is always extremely on-the-ball and his razor focus on client deliverables has been invaluable for us as a team when prioritising work. One of the common difficulties in building software with data science is pinning down a delivery timeline, which is hard due to the uncertainty of experimental analysis. Dan was pragmatic and innovative in his approach, making suggestions and coming up with new approaches to communicating the data science team's progress with the wider business. His efforts meant that all the key stakeholders were fully kept in the loop which helped engineering cross-team collaboration and also helped communication with other units of the business, such as client-facing teams. Ultimately Dan has both enabled and supercharged our team's ability to deliver machine-learning software exactly where the client and business need is highest.
Darren Bellamy
I had the great pleasure of working directly with Dan on a Small Change Programme. Dan was instrumental in helping to design the programme and was the primary link between the programme and IT. I found Dan very easy to work with and together we achieved a high rate of delivery, employing agile methods acrosss multiple business and technology functions. Dan and I drove the planning and scheduling and worked very closely to ensure the updates and statuses were accurate and communicated regularly. The feedback for the programme was excellent and drove the creation of delivery roadmaps within the business and technology functions Including a regulatory delivery roadmap. I found Dan to be the perfect mix of professional and friendly and was very impressed by his Agile skills. He would make an excellent product manager in the future!
Ronan Diver
I worked closely with Dan for 10 months. He has been instrumental in the both the team's success and my own personal success within Codat this year to delivery high-quality data science and machine learning data products to market at scale. Dan is always extremely on-the-ball and his razor focus on client deliverables has been invaluable for us as a team when prioritising work. One of the common difficulties in building software with data science is pinning down a delivery timeline, which is hard due to the uncertainty of experimental analysis. Dan was pragmatic and innovative in his approach, making suggestions and coming up with new approaches to communicating the data science team's progress with the wider business. His efforts meant that all the key stakeholders were fully kept in the loop which helped engineering cross-team collaboration and also helped communication with other units of the business, such as client-facing teams. Ultimately Dan has both enabled and supercharged our team's ability to deliver machine-learning software exactly where the client and business need is highest.
Darren Bellamy
I had the great pleasure of working directly with Dan on a Small Change Programme. Dan was instrumental in helping to design the programme and was the primary link between the programme and IT. I found Dan very easy to work with and together we achieved a high rate of delivery, employing agile methods acrosss multiple business and technology functions. Dan and I drove the planning and scheduling and worked very closely to ensure the updates and statuses were accurate and communicated regularly. The feedback for the programme was excellent and drove the creation of delivery roadmaps within the business and technology functions Including a regulatory delivery roadmap. I found Dan to be the perfect mix of professional and friendly and was very impressed by his Agile skills. He would make an excellent product manager in the future!
Ronan Diver
I worked closely with Dan for 10 months. He has been instrumental in the both the team's success and my own personal success within Codat this year to delivery high-quality data science and machine learning data products to market at scale. Dan is always extremely on-the-ball and his razor focus on client deliverables has been invaluable for us as a team when prioritising work. One of the common difficulties in building software with data science is pinning down a delivery timeline, which is hard due to the uncertainty of experimental analysis. Dan was pragmatic and innovative in his approach, making suggestions and coming up with new approaches to communicating the data science team's progress with the wider business. His efforts meant that all the key stakeholders were fully kept in the loop which helped engineering cross-team collaboration and also helped communication with other units of the business, such as client-facing teams. Ultimately Dan has both enabled and supercharged our team's ability to deliver machine-learning software exactly where the client and business need is highest.
Darren Bellamy
I had the great pleasure of working directly with Dan on a Small Change Programme. Dan was instrumental in helping to design the programme and was the primary link between the programme and IT. I found Dan very easy to work with and together we achieved a high rate of delivery, employing agile methods acrosss multiple business and technology functions. Dan and I drove the planning and scheduling and worked very closely to ensure the updates and statuses were accurate and communicated regularly. The feedback for the programme was excellent and drove the creation of delivery roadmaps within the business and technology functions Including a regulatory delivery roadmap. I found Dan to be the perfect mix of professional and friendly and was very impressed by his Agile skills. He would make an excellent product manager in the future!
Credentials
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ICAgile Certified Professional - Agile Coaching (ICP-ACC)
ICAgileFeb, 2021- Nov, 2024 -
Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)
Scrum AllianceDec, 2020- Nov, 2024
Experience
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GSS - Global Screening Services
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United Kingdom
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Financial Services
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1 - 100 Employee
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Delivery Manager
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Feb 2023 - Present
Introduced DORA metrics to GSS, used them to streamline reporting and drive team improvements Delivered key MVP and testing milestones for launching to financial services clients Took ownership of the process for operationalizing GSS, working with exec level on security, resilience and data privacy, and created dashboards to track that we met regulatory obligations at launch Owned the delivery across three distributed cross-functional platform teams, comprised of Java engineers, data… Show more Introduced DORA metrics to GSS, used them to streamline reporting and drive team improvements Delivered key MVP and testing milestones for launching to financial services clients Took ownership of the process for operationalizing GSS, working with exec level on security, resilience and data privacy, and created dashboards to track that we met regulatory obligations at launch Owned the delivery across three distributed cross-functional platform teams, comprised of Java engineers, data engineers, QAs, DevOps, product owners and BAs Worked with other delivery managers to align roadmaps Planned out the roadmap for the group, balancing clients and other teams with my technical roadmap Acted as agile coach to the engineers, team leads, QAs and product managers; explaining not just the process, but why it was important Worked with Head of Delivery on team sizing and makeup Managed dependencies between teams and stakeholders and removed blockages, running several cross-company working groups Created and chaired a Delivery Guild, including a book club, to provide support and share ideas Show less Introduced DORA metrics to GSS, used them to streamline reporting and drive team improvements Delivered key MVP and testing milestones for launching to financial services clients Took ownership of the process for operationalizing GSS, working with exec level on security, resilience and data privacy, and created dashboards to track that we met regulatory obligations at launch Owned the delivery across three distributed cross-functional platform teams, comprised of Java engineers, data… Show more Introduced DORA metrics to GSS, used them to streamline reporting and drive team improvements Delivered key MVP and testing milestones for launching to financial services clients Took ownership of the process for operationalizing GSS, working with exec level on security, resilience and data privacy, and created dashboards to track that we met regulatory obligations at launch Owned the delivery across three distributed cross-functional platform teams, comprised of Java engineers, data engineers, QAs, DevOps, product owners and BAs Worked with other delivery managers to align roadmaps Planned out the roadmap for the group, balancing clients and other teams with my technical roadmap Acted as agile coach to the engineers, team leads, QAs and product managers; explaining not just the process, but why it was important Worked with Head of Delivery on team sizing and makeup Managed dependencies between teams and stakeholders and removed blockages, running several cross-company working groups Created and chaired a Delivery Guild, including a book club, to provide support and share ideas Show less
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Codat
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United Kingdom
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Financial Services
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100 - 200 Employee
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Senior Delivery Manager
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Sep 2022 - Dec 2022
Overall Delivery Manager for Assess, a key strategic product for enriching and visualising small business financial health data. Delivered on time for launch at New York FinTech week 2022 and had 1000 connected companies within 1 month, hitting the key company KPI. Grew the Risks & Insights group: started with a pure back end C# team that had multiple responsibilities, added specialist roles including React and Data Science, then split it into stream-aligned, platform and enabling teams… Show more Overall Delivery Manager for Assess, a key strategic product for enriching and visualising small business financial health data. Delivered on time for launch at New York FinTech week 2022 and had 1000 connected companies within 1 month, hitting the key company KPI. Grew the Risks & Insights group: started with a pure back end C# team that had multiple responsibilities, added specialist roles including React and Data Science, then split it into stream-aligned, platform and enabling teams. Worked with teams and team leads to improve their Agile processes: moved from one planning to smaller granular planning, retrospective as a chore to enthusiastic participation with actions, clear but challengeable processes. Took control of company wide Epic backlog, running a weekly meeting of all Delivery Managers to ensure dependencies were covered and deadlines met. Improved quality and testing, firstly making QAs part of the teams, then coaching on making testing a full team responsibility and pulling from the right. Reworked the API breaking change working group, keeping it focussed on what we could deliver rather than perfection, chasing and updating old decisions and changing it from a committee to an advisory group which increased the throughput of useful changes. Reduced cycle time across Risks & Insights from 7 days to 3, pulling it below an iteration and the engineering wide KPI.
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Delivery Manager
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Mar 2021 - Sep 2022
Codat is the universal API for small business data. We provide real-time connectivity to enable software providers and financial institutions to build integrated products for their small business customers. We handle the heavy lifting of integrations, leaving providers free to focus on how integrations can improve their products for their small business customers. Codat is backed by some of the world's leading investors, including Tiger Global, PayPal Ventures, Index… Show more Codat is the universal API for small business data. We provide real-time connectivity to enable software providers and financial institutions to build integrated products for their small business customers. We handle the heavy lifting of integrations, leaving providers free to focus on how integrations can improve their products for their small business customers. Codat is backed by some of the world's leading investors, including Tiger Global, PayPal Ventures, Index Ventures and American Express Ventures. We have offices in London, New York and Sydney.
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Investec
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United Kingdom
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Financial Services
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700 & Above Employee
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Agile Delivery Manager
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May 2020 - Nov 2020
Shaped the department with the Head of IT, created the right team boundaries and interaction patterns which reduced dependencies and increased delivery pace. Delivered on time multiple urgent and unexpected projects as a response to market and regulatory changes due to the Covid pandemic. Designed and ran remotely quarterly planning meetings with 7 delivery teams and stakeholders from across the bank which created and aligned the book of work across the whole department. Developed and… Show more Shaped the department with the Head of IT, created the right team boundaries and interaction patterns which reduced dependencies and increased delivery pace. Delivered on time multiple urgent and unexpected projects as a response to market and regulatory changes due to the Covid pandemic. Designed and ran remotely quarterly planning meetings with 7 delivery teams and stakeholders from across the bank which created and aligned the book of work across the whole department. Developed and ran a fortnightly sync process to reassess priorities, surface impediments and adjust scope so that the book of work could be refined in a controlled and Agile way. Created a Testing Guild to understand the maturity of testing in the various teams, and to share best practice which led to an increase in knowledge sharing and test automation. Co-ordinated delivery of work across the 7 teams of Banking, Lending and Savings Technology for Investec Private Bank UK, and aligned it to the Bank’s strategic objectives. Owned and improved the Agile, delivery, testing and continuous improvement processes across the department to accelerate the flow through the value stream. Visualised the work at the department level through a portfolio level Kanban board and ensured this was delivered smoothly and at pace. Ensured clear communication of roadmap and plans to all stakeholders through meetings and dashboards, this reduced friction and increased transparency. Made sure dependencies between teams and stakeholders were managed and blockages removed. Collected and used metrics such as cycle and lead time to highlight constraints and drive change. Facilitated personal development and psychological safety. Coached teams and leaders on Agile and process changes. Responsible for quarterly roadmap, worked with business stakeholders and technology leaders to create a portfolio of work across all teams. Designed and ran the quarterly planning meeting that drove this.
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Capability Lead
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Feb 2018 - May 2020
Proposed and established an innovative portfolio-level work management forum to visualise work at the department level, supporting smooth delivery at pace and reducing cycle time by 75%. Delivered a new version of a key retail savings product to very aggressive timelines, played the dual role of Scrum master and lead of two involved teams. Delivered whilst transitioning to full work from home and as a response to a liquidity need at the start of the Covid pandemic. Drove the teams that… Show more Proposed and established an innovative portfolio-level work management forum to visualise work at the department level, supporting smooth delivery at pace and reducing cycle time by 75%. Delivered a new version of a key retail savings product to very aggressive timelines, played the dual role of Scrum master and lead of two involved teams. Delivered whilst transitioning to full work from home and as a response to a liquidity need at the start of the Covid pandemic. Drove the teams that delivered the automation and digitisation of paper based welcome letters for HNW and retail clients, completed in 2 weeks to allow 100% remote working. Led the team that delivered the client onboarding journey for Notice Plus, which won the “Innovation in Personal Finance” award at the Moneyfacts Awards 2019. Designed incremental improvements to the HNW and retail client onboarding process, increasing volume of accounts opened by 20% whilst reducing support calls. Key role in the management team which transformed Banking and Savings technology, aligning it with business capabilities to better serve our clients. Standardised and improved the technology recruitment process, this meant that we hired four .NET developers in weeks rather than months. Used this structure to then hire remotely. Worked as an IT manager leading 15 people across several teams and locations (London, Manchester, and Johannesburg) in the Private Bank (UK) division of Investec. Turned the Private Bank’s business strategy and goals into a clear and consistent book of work. Defined, implemented, measured and continuously improved IT processes to support the strategy. Reviewed the existing Agile processes, drove iterative improvements and coached other teams and leaders on this which helped to reduce WIP and so increase productivity. Created and maintained technology roadmaps to deliver stable systems, reducing incidents by half and increasing velocity by 30%.
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Spotlight
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United Kingdom
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Performing Arts
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200 - 300 Employee
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Head of IT
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Nov 2014 - Jan 2018
Working as part of the Spotlight strategy team to help create a vision for the business. Creating a vision and roadmap for IT, and aligning it with Spotlight’s overall goals and vision, the ideas from the product team, and what the IT team want as a group and individually. Bringing development, operations, and testing together to create cross-functional teams embodying DevOps and agile principles. Owning the agile process, championing it, mentoring team members, and… Show more Working as part of the Spotlight strategy team to help create a vision for the business. Creating a vision and roadmap for IT, and aligning it with Spotlight’s overall goals and vision, the ideas from the product team, and what the IT team want as a group and individually. Bringing development, operations, and testing together to create cross-functional teams embodying DevOps and agile principles. Owning the agile process, championing it, mentoring team members, and encouraging continuous improvement. Creating a Community of Practice to consider security concerns and compliancy needs. Managing the service desk team to deliver support and services to internal and external customers. Creating and running the recruitment process for new and existing roles. This included designing the interview process and finding and on-boarding seven new members of the team in my first six months. Running the annual review process, not just for my eight direct reports but being involved for all team members. Working with my senior IT team to turn my roadmap into milestones and sprint deliverables. Driving the creation of dashboards and monitoring as part of all new development, so we can track issues and internal stakeholders can see success. Drawing up the budget for IT, balancing the demands of the team and the needs of the business with financial realities. Identifying gaps in our expertise, and creating and managing partnerships with 3rd parties to fill these.
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Scrum Master
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Sep 2011 - Nov 2014
A key member of the transition team that introduced agile to Spotlight, including taking the role of Spotlight’s first Scrum Master. Organising and facilitating the daily scrum, retrospective, planning and demos. In addition scheduling technical visioning and release planning meetings as required. Creating and maintaining information radiators such as sprint and release burn down charts, and current work in progress. These were originally whiteboard and paper based, but then transitioned… Show more A key member of the transition team that introduced agile to Spotlight, including taking the role of Spotlight’s first Scrum Master. Organising and facilitating the daily scrum, retrospective, planning and demos. In addition scheduling technical visioning and release planning meetings as required. Creating and maintaining information radiators such as sprint and release burn down charts, and current work in progress. These were originally whiteboard and paper based, but then transitioned to Pivotal Tracker as a digital solution. Allowing the smooth running of the sprint by identifying and removing impediments, and keeping the development team focused on delivering features for the customer. Liaising with stakeholders at all stages of the product development flow, from initial ideas logging and roadmapping through high level visioning with the PMO and finally working closely with the product owner during development. Evangelising the agile process and introducing new agile practices, both within the IT team and throughout the wider business. Full involvement in the process that has taken Spotlight from being print based business to being primarily led by IT and software services. Keeping the development team focused on providing customer value. Ensuring that the finished code is supportable and documented where necessary so that both internal and external stakeholders are communicated to with the appropriate detail at the correct time Planning and implementing releases alongside the release manager and operations department. Working with the CTO and architect to identify and ameliorate any cross project dependencies. Ensuring that the development team maintains best practice whilst actively seeking out and trialling new technologies and tools. Creating a learning culture through the use of retrospectives for each sprint, a regular review of velocity to monitor improvements or problems and allowing team members the space to do R&D projects.
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Software Developer
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Mar 2006 - Sep 2011
Using classic ASP and then ASP.NET MVC to create wide variety of web applications for external and internal users. Creating and supporting SQL Server databases, including working with third-party solutions and integrating them into projects. Extensive use of stored procedures, triggers, SQL Agent jobs and functions, moving on to using ORM systems such as NHibernate. Working with business stakeholders to take projects from the idea stage to production code. A key contributor to… Show more Using classic ASP and then ASP.NET MVC to create wide variety of web applications for external and internal users. Creating and supporting SQL Server databases, including working with third-party solutions and integrating them into projects. Extensive use of stored procedures, triggers, SQL Agent jobs and functions, moving on to using ORM systems such as NHibernate. Working with business stakeholders to take projects from the idea stage to production code. A key contributor to architectural discussions and decisions. Introducing continuous integration using Subversion and TeamCity to ensure the quality of the code and reduce problems with integration.
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Bluefish
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Leicestershire, England, United Kingdom
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Software Developer
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2003 - Mar 2006
Senior Developer in a Web Design and IT Support company. Developing web based solutions in classic ASP and ASP.NET for a diverse customer base including large and small companies, both national and international. Designing and maintaining in-house and customer databases, mainly SQL Server but also Access and Advantage. Liaising with team members, designers and customers on a daily basis, including acting as the technical expert in sales meetings. Projects included E-commerce web… Show more Senior Developer in a Web Design and IT Support company. Developing web based solutions in classic ASP and ASP.NET for a diverse customer base including large and small companies, both national and international. Designing and maintaining in-house and customer databases, mainly SQL Server but also Access and Advantage. Liaising with team members, designers and customers on a daily basis, including acting as the technical expert in sales meetings. Projects included E-commerce web sites, sites with Content Management Systems and bespoke stand-alone applications. Show less Senior Developer in a Web Design and IT Support company. Developing web based solutions in classic ASP and ASP.NET for a diverse customer base including large and small companies, both national and international. Designing and maintaining in-house and customer databases, mainly SQL Server but also Access and Advantage. Liaising with team members, designers and customers on a daily basis, including acting as the technical expert in sales meetings. Projects included E-commerce web… Show more Senior Developer in a Web Design and IT Support company. Developing web based solutions in classic ASP and ASP.NET for a diverse customer base including large and small companies, both national and international. Designing and maintaining in-house and customer databases, mainly SQL Server but also Access and Advantage. Liaising with team members, designers and customers on a daily basis, including acting as the technical expert in sales meetings. Projects included E-commerce web sites, sites with Content Management Systems and bespoke stand-alone applications. Show less
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Education
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The University of Sheffield
Bsc, Computer Science
Community
