Protect our Land, Ascend with Us!

Ascension is seeking an experienced Project Manager / Agile Delivery Lead to serve as the senior delivery leader and designated Key Personnel supporting the U.S. Coast Guard’s Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Cyber and Intelligence organization, specifically its Business Operations & Services, Mission Performance Division.

The ideal candidate combines strong federal project/program management experience with practical Agile delivery leadership, business process improvement, stakeholder management, performance management, and IT/business transformation experience.

This individual will be responsible for ensuring that Ascension’s multidisciplinary delivery team successfully executes its assignments across Agile development cycles while meeting Coast Guard requirements for schedule, quality, reporting, security, and contract performance.

This is not simply an administrative Project Manager position. The candidate must be comfortable operating between executive management, contracting officials, government Scrum Masters, technical specialists, business analysts, data professionals, and process-improvement personnel. The person must be able to translate Government priorities into executable work, anticipate delivery risks, maintain accountability across multiple workstreams, and keep projects moving in a rapidly changing C5I environment.

The Coast Guard requires the contractor to work within defined Agile/Scrum teams and participate in Sprint Planning, Backlog Reviews, Sprint Reviews, and Sprint Retrospectives, delivering User Stories, story points, Product Increments, and Sprint reporting.

Summary of the Contractor Role

The Project Manager / Agile Delivery Lead will be Ascension’s primary contractor representative responsible for management, coordination, oversight, and successful execution of work performed under the USCG Agile Development Services II task order.

The Project Manager will serve as the single point of contact for the Contracting Officer and Contracting Officer’s Representative and will provide leadership across contractor personnel supporting business governance, business performance measurement, data integration, continual process improvement, knowledge management, SharePoint/Power Platform support, and organizational change management. The PWS specifically anticipates the Project Manager being one of the contractor’s senior-level employees.

The role requires disciplined Agile execution while recognizing that the Government provides the Scrum Master. Accordingly, I would not advertise this position as the contractor Scrum Master. Rather, the Agile Delivery Lead coordinates Ascension’s work with the Government Scrum Master and ensures Ascension’s team meets its Sprint commitments.

The PM will establish and maintain the project’s management framework, including the project backlog, product increments, schedule, personnel responsibilities, quality controls, risk/issue management, performance reporting, and deliverable tracking. The PWS requires an initial Project Plan covering these areas and requires Monthly Performance Reports that include technical progress, schedule status, travel, concerns/recommendations, and Sprint Velocity information.

The successful candidate should be structured and detail-oriented while also comfortable operating in an environment in which priorities, backlog items, stakeholder needs, and technical requirements may evolve from Sprint to Sprint.

Position’s Anticipated Day-to-Day Activities

The Project Manager / Agile Delivery Lead will:

• LEAD overall contractor execution and maintain accountability for scope, schedule, quality, staffing, risks, deliverables, and contractual commitments.
• SERVE as Ascension’s primary point of contact with the USCG Contracting Officer, COR, Government technical leadership, and other designated stakeholders.
• COORDINATE Ascension personnel working across business governance, business performance, data, process improvement, knowledge management, and change-management activities.
• PARTICIPATE in Agile Sprint Planning, Backlog Reviews, Sprint Reviews, and Sprint Retrospectives with Government Scrum Masters and integrated Government/contractor teams.
• TRACK assigned User Stories, story points, Product Increments, completed work, rolled work, blocked items, and newly added work.
• MONITOR Sprint velocity and contractor delivery performance and incorporate required performance information into Monthly Performance Reports.
• DEVELOP and maintain the project backlog, integrated project schedule, milestones, product-increment plans, dependencies, and delivery priorities.
• PREPARE and maintain the Project Plan required by PWS 4.9, including backlog, product increments, project schedule, contractor roles, and Sprint quality controls.
• COORDINATE development and implementation of the contract Onboarding Plan.
• DIRECT contractor preparation for the Post-Award Conference and subsequent progress meetings.
• IDENTIFY project, technical, resource, schedule, security, stakeholder, and performance risks and implement appropriate mitigation or escalation actions.
• FACILITATE stakeholder meetings, working groups, briefings, Service Management Reviews, Program Management Reviews, and other project forums.
• MAINTAIN action-item, decision, issue, risk, dependency, and deliverable trackers.
• ENSURE Ascension personnel meet required schedules, service levels, and deliverable acceptance standards.
• REVIEW reports, briefings, analyses, process documentation, dashboards, metrics, SOPs, and other contractor work products for technical quality and compliance.
• ENFORCE document management, naming conventions, version control, comment resolution, and quality-review procedures.
• COORDINATE major and minor Government-requested revisions within applicable PWS turnaround requirements.
• SUPPORT business governance initiatives, including current-state/future-state analysis, process mapping, governance structures, SOPs, stakeholder engagement, and courses-of-action development.
• OVERSEE performance-measurement initiatives involving KPIs, metrics frameworks, reporting systems, data visualization, and executive decision aids.
• COORDINATE activities involving data integration, ETL, Databricks, Qlik, SharePoint, Power Platform, and related technical resources without necessarily serving as the hands-on technical developer.
• SUPPORT Lean/Six Sigma and continual-process-improvement initiatives conducted by designated technical personnel.
• COORDINATE organizational change-management activities associated with Coast Guard transformation initiatives.
• ENSURE staffing continuity and coordinate qualified replacement resources when necessary.
• ENSURE contractor personnel comply with Coast Guard/DHS security, records management, IT security awareness, CUI, Privacy Act, and information-protection requirements.
• COORDINATE travel, Government approvals, and required trip reporting.
• ESCALATE emerging technical or contractual matters promptly and drive them through resolution.
• COMMUNICATE project status, accomplishments, constraints, decisions, upcoming priorities, and corrective actions clearly to Ascension and Government leadership.

The PWS places substantial importance on quality: mission-essential work is expected to be on time, accurate, and require no more than two rewrites, with a 95% acceptable quality level.