The Opportunity
We're looking for an experienced Implementation Manager to lead the end-to-end deployment of a major mainframe product migration programme. This role is responsible for planning, coordinating, and delivering a controlled production migration, ensuring operational readiness, governance compliance, and a low-risk transition into live service. You'll work across technology, operations, business teams, and third-party suppliers to drive successful cutover and go-live activities.
Key Responsibilities
- Define and manage the overall implementation and cutover strategy.
- Create and maintain integrated deployment plans, timelines, dependencies, and critical paths.
- Lead cutover planning, including detailed runbooks, rollback procedures, communications, and stakeholder engagement.
- Coordinate release and change management activities, including approvals and CAB processes.
- Drive operational readiness across environments, monitoring, support models, scheduling, and service transition.
- Manage implementation aspects of data migration, validation, reconciliation, and controls.
- Lead dress rehearsals and mock cutovers, capturing lessons learned and refining plans.
- Facilitate go/no-go decision forums and readiness reviews.
- Manage RAID logs, executive reporting, and implementation governance.
- Oversee hypercare activities, service stabilisation, and transition into BAU support.
- Coordinate vendors and third-party suppliers involved in deployment activities.
Key Deliverables
- Implementation Strategy and Integrated Cutover Plan
- Detailed Cutover Runbooks
- Rehearsal Plans and Outcome Reports
- Change Management and CAB Documentation
- Readiness Assessments and Go/No-Go Criteria
- Hypercare and BAU Handover Plans
- Closure Reports and Lessons Learned Documentation
Essential Skills & Experience
- Proven experience delivering Implementation, Cutover, or Deployment Management for large-scale transformation programmes.
- Strong experience with mainframe or legacy platform migrations.
- Knowledge of z/OS production environments, including:
- JCL and batch processing
- Scheduling tools such as Control-M or CA-7
- DB2 and IMS
- CICS
- Disaster Recovery and resilience practices
- Experience leading cross-functional cutovers and dress rehearsals.
- Strong understanding of ITIL-aligned Change, Release, and Incident Management.
- Excellent planning, dependency management, and stakeholder engagement skills.
- Ability to lead effectively during critical go-live and cutover periods.
- Strong written communication skills, including executive reporting and governance documentation.
Experience With
- MS Project, Smartsheet, Jira, and Confluence
- ServiceNow or equivalent ITSM platforms
- Excel and reporting tools
What We're Looking For
You'll be a calm and organised delivery professional with a proven ability to lead complex migrations and high-risk production deployments. Comfortable working across technology, operations, business, and supplier teams, you'll excel at managing dependencies, mitigating risk, and ensuring successful implementation outcomes. If you have a strong background in mainframe migrations, cutover management, and enterprise-scale implementations, we'd love to hear from you.