Visualfiles Team Leader

A leading UK law firm with a network of offices from the South Coast to Scotland, working together as one national team. An innovative practice and the first top 100 law firm to achieve “Gold Standard” Investors in People, our values and culture are not just words on our website but are the heartbeat of the firm. The lack of barriers between departments, a real lack of hierarchy, zero tolerance for arrogance and pomposity makes Shoosmiths a fantastic place to work.

Reporting to the Development Manager the Job Holder will lead a team of Visualfiles analysts across a range of technologies developing and supporting the case, matter, and workflow management systems including integration into other inhouse and third-party systems.

This will encompass the following:

• Manage the workload and performance of the team.
• Managing projects from initial concept through development and deployment

The following details the principal activities of the role, however, this should not be seen as limitative and the Job Holder will be expected to work generally within the application development, deployment and support sphere.

Management

• Lead, motivate and manage the performance of the Visualfiles Team.
• Ensure appropriate continuous professional development to enhance skills to meet and support the demands of IS and the business.
• Maintain appropriate documentation of the application landscape, integration, data models workflows and data flows.
• In conjunction with the Development Manager, responsible for staff management and development, including performance reviews, overall staff morale and motivation, and general staff well-being.
• Responsible for defining, reviewing and communicating application and project development plans.
• Work across Shoosmiths offices as required.

Applications

• Manage the full software Development Life Cycle with respect to the development of Shoosmiths systems, including but not limited to the following:
  • Business process and requirement analysis and documentation
  • Production of functional specifications
  • Production of technical specifications
  • Data modelling
  • Development
  • Deployment
  • Handover to the Support function

• Maintain the consistency, integrity and security of Shoosmiths data across Visualfiles and its associated systems. Maintain appropriate documentation for retaining the integrity of such data in accordance with Shoosmiths Data Retention and Destruction policies.
• Participate in periodic disaster recovery tests to ensure the veracity and recoverability of Shoosmiths application landscape.
• Develop a process centric approach to the analysis and systemisation of business processes developing appropriate skills in staff to adopt this approach.
• Help define the appropriate system functionality to develop and enhance the firm’s Business Intelligence capabilities.

Support Services

• Work with members of the IS team to ensure the appropriate provision of support services are provided when new applications are deployed, ensuring the scope and partition of support activities between the 1st/2nd line teams and the applications team.
• Maintain the appropriate levels of documentation, knowledge base and skills within the IS Department to ensure the appropriate level of knowledge sharing and minimise dependence on individuals.

Project Responsibilities

• Develop appropriate project plans and resource planning for appropriate projects.
• Manage such projects from inception, business, functional and technical analysis and specification to deployment and support; incorporating where appropriate:
• Business functional workshops
• Design documentation
• Appropriate development documentation
• Application / data security specifications
• Technical architecture specification
• Manage UAT cycles
• Deployment and handover to the support function
• Manage such projects to time

Experienced software developer with extensive technical experience in Visualfiles and with the ability to manage projects and with the technical knowledge to both contribute to the project and mentor team members. Key requirements include:

• 1 - 2 years of project management experience
• Experience of managing business, technical and application resources to deliver solutions
• Extensive experience of Visualfiles
• Experience of the Microsoft development stack.
• Experience of leading a team
• In depth knowledge of process modelling techniques and their application in systems development and deployment.

Advantageous

• Experience of working in a regulated sector / professional services

Shoosmiths is a committed Equal Opportunities employer promoting equality of opportunity. This means that everyone who either applies to or works for the firm is treated equally, whatever their gender, age, ethnic origin, nationality, marital status, disability, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.