Transition Lead
About the role
Role: Transition Lead Location: Toronto Office Onsite requirement
The Transition Lead is responsible for planning, managing, and executing the transition of services from the client or incumbent vendor to the delivery organization. This includes knowledge transfer, process setup, governance establishment, and ensuring a seamless transition to steady-state operations with minimal business disruption.
Key Responsibilities
- Transition Planning & Strategy • Develop a comprehensive transition plan including scope, timelines, milestones, and resource requirements. • Define transition approach, governance model, and communication plan. • Establish success criteria, KPIs, and exit criteria for transition completion. • Align with stakeholders on transition objectives and expected outcomes.
- Knowledge Transfer (KT) Management • Plan and execute structured knowledge transfer sessions (functional, technical, operational). • Ensure proper documentation, playbooks, SOPs, and runbooks are created and validated. • Track and ensure KT completion, effectiveness, and certification of teams. • Manage reverse shadowing and shadowing phases.
- Stakeholder & Governance Management • Act as the primary transition point of contact for client and internal stakeholders. • Conduct regular governance meetings (daily/weekly status, steering committee updates). • Provide transparent reporting on risks, issues, and progress. • Coordinate with legal, procurement, HR, IT, and vendors as required.
- Resource & Team Management • Identify and onboard transition team members (SMEs, architects, support teams). • Ensure adequate capacity planning and ramp-up strategy. • Collaborate with delivery teams to prepare for steady-state operations.
- Risk & Issue Management • Identify, assess, and mitigate transition risks and dependencies. • Maintain a risk and issue register with mitigation and contingency plans. • Escalate critical issues and ensure prompt resolution.
- Process Setup & Tools Enablement • Establish and standardize ITIL processes (incident, change, problem, service request). • Ensure setup of required tools and systems (ServiceNow, monitoring, DevOps tools). • Validate access management, environment readiness, and infrastructure setup.
- Service Readiness & Stabilization • Ensure readiness for go-live/steady state through readiness assessments and checkpoints. • Support hypercare/post-transition stabilization phase. • Track and improve initial service performance metrics.
- Compliance & Documentation • Ensure compliance with contractual obligations, regulatory requirements, and security policies. • Maintain all transition documentation and audit artifacts. • Support internal and external audits during transition.
Required Skills & Qualifications Professional Experience • 8–12+ years of experience in IT services / managed services / ADM engagements. • Proven experience in transition management, service onboarding, or migrations. • Experience working in global delivery models and multi-vendor environments. Technical & Domain Skills • Good understanding of: o Application Development & Maintenance (ADM) o ITIL processes and service management frameworks o Cloud, infrastructure, and application architectures (preferred) • Familiarity with tools like: o ServiceNow, JIRA, Confluence, Azure DevOps Leadership & Soft Skills • Strong project and program management skills • Excellent stakeholder management and communication • Ability to handle ambiguity and complex environments • Strong risk management and problem-solving capabilities • Negotiation and conflict resolution skills